Nothing Special
by javajive
Summary: Miles is hot & someone's got a crush... Could it be mutual? Dharma-era fic, just for fun. Miles, Kate, Hugo, Mrs Chang, Suliet, Jin, Faraday, Phil - Ch20. Some call it therapy, others: exorcism. The end result is all the same.
1. It's nothing special

Miles is hot. Orange nylon shirt and all, someone's got a crush. _"She sees him disappearing down the road. Jumpsuit flapping unattractively low on his ass. Nothing special. Nothing special at all, she reminds herself. And yet, her she is. Mouth like sandpaper. Heart in her throat. "_Set in Dharma-days after Hurley, Kate & Jack returns.

**Nothing special**

Kate is not a good looser. She has never been able to accept failure gracefully. Acknowledging defeat. Jealousy haunts her, day and night and it takes a preposterous amount of effort to feign indifference. _He is with her now._ She repeats it day and night. Still, she can't quite believe it. She has lost him.

She settles in. Learns to work the cars like a pro. Working side by side with _her_. Learns to hide her jealousy better. Learns to watch _them_ without breaking. Learns to believe in her mantra; _he is with her now_.

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It is just before lunch. Her stomach churns. Feeling slightly qualmy from the hunger pangs and the heat. She stands up. Hands on hips like a trucker. Not feeling particularly feminine in her overall get-up.

_Juliet does. _

Scary-ass Stepford wife. She always looks elegant and at ease. Her movements are innately lithe and refined. A Grace Kelly at the garage. _Smug bitch._

No, Kate has never been a good looser.

She cranes her neck as she sees him approaching in the distance. Grumpy half smile. Like a defective Cheshire cat. The palpitations of her pulse speeds up. Her mouth is parched and it takes all she's got to stop the wistful look she wants to cast in his direction. The urge to hit herself across the head with the large spanner in her hand is overwhelming.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid! How could this have happened!?_

He has passed the carpool now. She sees him disappearing down the road. His jumpsuit flaps unattractively low around his ass. _Nothing special._ Nothing special at all, she reminds herself. And yet, her she is. Mouth like sandpaper. Her heart is a lump of cement in her throat.

She slaps her hand to her forehead with an obscenely wet sound. Juliet turns around to look at her and gives her that algid queen-ruling-supreme elevation of the eyebrow that she does so well. _The I-am-better-than you _and_ I've-got-your-man-because-of it look_. Her smug and cloying little half smile.

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At night, they all gather at the communal house for a beer.

He is there, of course. He sits in a corner, lips pursed, eyes crude and hostile. _Loner._

His wide collared shirt, a horrid fluorescent orange colour, does nothing for him. How he manages to always look so arrogant, so conceited, she'll never know. His hair sticks up like wet chicken feathers. He looks perpetually unwashed and uncared for. A man that hasn't slept in weeks, dark circles etched under the intense animosity of his eyes. His face unshaven with stubble only on his upper lip and chin, pouty mouth set in a sullen curve.

But the self-confidence he extrudes, floors her every time.

She feels it in the pit of her stomach and further down. She swirls her drink around, trying to look aloof and glances elsewhere. But right at the other corner are Sawyer and Juliet. Juliet looking fresh like a fucking begonia in her light blue summer dress. Her hand on Sawyers arm, stroking him and laughing at something he's said. Proprietary. Proud. L_ike she had invented him._

And although all that is long past and the shock has settled, it still hurts and she has to look away.

Miles meets her gaze across the room. He raises his glass towards her with his cheeky insolent smirk. Eyes hard and black and scornful above his drink. _He knows_. He always knows. _Bastard._

He is enjoying this. Her discomfort. This is the sort of stuff he lives for. A sorry excuse for a man. Sorry excuse for a smile too. And yet, _argh!_

He freaks her out. He sees right through her with his disdainful catlike eyes. He sees the oozing ugliness inside, the jealousy and the resentment. He sees the shame of her bitterness and the hurt over the abandonment. She feels him observe her downfall with glee. Always watching. Enjoying her misery. No, he isn't a good person. No better than she at any rate. Always that knowing mocking smirk, watching her from afar, making a fool out of herself. Not taken in at all by her sweet demeanour. He watches and waits. Other people, for his own personal entertainment

His unshaven face, messy and _hell-if-I-care_ appearance. Eyebrows raised permanently in his very own _what-the fuck_-mode. Antagonising mouth, her undoing, his lips with its funny little upturned ends and an absurdly perfect absence of cupids bow. She looks down at her feet. She can't bear it_. Crap!_

_Where did this come from?_

The annoying pulse that gallops away when eyes meet eyes. To think that she had thought him, if not ugly, then _meh…_ not exactly attractive. Not her type. He had not even hit the radar. Just annoying. Unremarkable, nothing special.

And now. _Oh how_….

She knows that he knows. He must know. _Oh god, he can never know_. The shame of it. It rivals the humiliation of seeing Sawyer and Juliet all lovey-dovey in their nauseating little suburban bubble. This ridiculous crush. Surely it is nothing else. A passing, insane infatuation. Mortifying schoolgirl puppy love. Sort of icky.

_What is wrong with her?_

Momentarily lost in her thoughts, all of the sudden, he is there, all offhanded arrogance and gall. He glides up right next to her. Near enough to feel his body-heat reflected on her naked arm through the offensive orange shirt. Nylon. And this what she yearns for.

She looks down. Not wanting to but, damned if she has anything to say about it. His wrists emerging from his sleeves, long fingers, smooth large piano hands the colour of freshly baked bread. He invades her space and she remembers the other one. How he used to be so good at it. With his looks and his dimples. This is nothing like that. But she can't deny the charge she feels. The inexplicable attraction. _He's nothing special._ Just another angry, hopelessly unapproachable man.

" So you need a new bad-boy huh? Doctor Love is a psychotic janitor and Sawyer has been domesticated and neutered. Too bad…"

Callous. She doesn't answer. Doesn't deign him with another look. _Bastard!_

He doesn't care. Pushes on. He enjoys this.

So am I it? I've seen you looking." Accompanied by a sly smile.

" In your dreams Miles!" she manages but feels her damned cheeks betraying her.

Heat spreading like lava from the neck up. The current painful in her veins. She hears a swoosh-like sound that she knows must be from the voltaic magnetism his cruelty gives of.

He laughs, his cynical demeaning laughter. His eyes vicious and amused. Nerdy, unremarkable man, but there is a crocodile in there somewhere. Sharp ruthless teeth. Predator. Insensitive. She wants to touch him. It hurts her fingers to stay still. She wants nothing else than to let her fingertips run over his impenitent, cruel lips, over his cheekbones, his arrogant neck. Skin the colour of maple syrup. Wondering what he tastes like. Like a mistake, probably.

_Hold on to the glass. Don't let go._

He looks nods his head towards Sawyer and Juliet - knowingly. His words come out gruff and low but perfectly articulated.

" Don't flatter yourself. I don't dip into other peoples trash."

It is so outrageously crude that she can't even find the poise to feel properly offended. She tips her beer forward, splashing the front of his ugly-ass shirt.

Watching his face for his next reaction. His lazy dispassionate smile creeps up. His standoffish detachment eats up the warmth it could have contained. His lips. The amount of crap she has heard crossing those lips. Insane, that is what she is. Even Sawyer never was as deliberately cruel. He shrugs. Showing that it means nothing to him. _No biggie_. He turns around, showing her the back of his revolting carrot-coloured shirt.

A masochist that is what she is. The irony of it. She has always had men fighting over her. She knows she is pretty. Always has known. But he is immune to her. It is such a cliché. Just the wanting what you can't have.

_Wanting the one that doesn't want you._

Nothing special. Just a shallow crush. She feels someone buffing in to her shoulder. Hugo sidles up beside her. Drink in chubby hand, the other brought up to rest heavily high on her back. She is grateful for the gesture. Embarrassed to have had her humiliation witnessed by someone.

" Dude, what did he say?"

" Nothing. It was nothing. Obviously not very fond of me."

Hugo tilts his head and pulls his mouth back tightly while rolling his chocolate Cocker Spaniel's eyes at her demonstratively.

" Dude, you are so way off, man, I don't even know where to start."

"I need another drink." she says and he smiles a daddy-knows-best smile at her before he takes her glass and pads off to refill for her.

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She doesn't stay long. It isn't really her scene or her crowd. And then again, what the hell is her scene? _Escaped convicts and murderers_? She giggles at herself as she fumbles with her keys on her dark porch of that creepily perfect little yellow house. As usual, she has forgotten to turn the porch light on. It doesn't matter. She is a bit tipsy and clumsy and can't manage to find a key that fits.

It's dark but she can see Sawyer and Juliet's house across the lawn. Tender orange light visible through the window on the side. She imagines them making love right now. _Fucking._ No they would never do that. They make love.

She half hopes that he will come out, and look across, at her. She often sits there in the evening, just for the off chance that he will. So that she will know that someone still cares for her. In an ever so distant disinterested way. She'll take any scraps she'll get. She isn't too proud.

" Admiring domestic bliss? Feeling lonely? "

She scatters a meter high at his voice. He moves out from the shadows. _As if he had been waiting for her. _A loutish grin on his face as he nods insinuatingly at the house at the other side of the lawn. _Bastard. _He knows she does this, sits here and watches. Every night.

" Not really any of your business." she quips putting on a snarky tone.

Damn, she wishes she could have come up with something sharp, witty, hurtful. But this is what happens. His presence suffocates any intelligent brain waves she might have had. She becomes this sheepish awkward idiot. _Damn him. _

_Calm down._

He has one hand on the porch post and one on his hip, hitching up the awful shirt to show off equally disgusting brown bellbottoms. She _knows_ he looks like a parody on 70's male fashion, but still she can't help to eye him up. Muscular, lean, perfectly proportioned, something not even the most horrendous clothing can hide. She has imagined him a thousand times. His skin on hers. His hands. His lips. Hot, angry and sensual.

Her eyes wander from his feet all the way up to that smirking acerbic face. The arrogance of him, oh fuck it. She can't help it.

_What's wrong with her? _

" Like what you see huh?" he mocks as his eyes meet hers.

Jeering, at her, dark almond shaped eyes, biting in, eroding her confidence further. Burning in and undressing her without mercy. _He knows. Oh fuck, he knows._

" Yeah, yeah sure. You can move on now Miles. It's enough for tonight." she says in a vane attempt to regain some of her dignity.

His conceited presence is too much for her. She hates how he makes her feel. _Wonders what he smells like_? No, no, she pushes the thoughts away. Nothing special. It's nothing.

But he doesn't move a fraction. Enjoying this game to much. Hell, he is probably starved for entertainment. The obnoxiousness that he has tended into a craft, a hobby a speciality of his own doesn't get to many outlets in freaky hippieville. He jumps at an opportunity to hone his skills, to enjoy her humiliation a bit more.

" You've got money?" he leers.

Her mind blanks out. What the hell is he on about and why is she still engaging in a conversation with this ass? _Because of the eye. The eyes. _

" _Huh?" _is all she can say.

" You've got money? _Mullah?_ I'd screw you for money. I mean if you really that desperate for it. But it would, but it'd cost you. Yeah,.. a lot…" he lets it trail out in the balmy evening air.

Why is she even amazed still by the baloney he comes up with? Say something. Anything!

" Didn't take you for a slut Straume" she retorts. _Asshole!_ But she can't help to smile at his burlesque outrageousness. It is just too much. Even for him/

" So, is that a yes I take it?" he moves closer yet. Letting go of the post. His face in the shadow but his eyes glimmering wickedly in the sparse light seeping in. Body honing in on her, feline and frightening.

" Is this a clever ruse to get into my pants Miles?

" Yeah, whatever." His eyes waver. Not so cocky any more. The voice has lost it's edge. And then, quietly, astonishingly, almost shyly:

" Is it working?"

She has to laugh then. An unattractive horsey laugh that spills unabashed and shameless in the evening air. Something wonderful happens then. He looses his sting. His smile meets her. Open, delighted and devoid of the usual sarcasm and acidity. Expectant, alerted hopefulness. Suddenly he is close, so close. She doesn't think she can handle this. The current is too loud. Alarmingly close.

She feels his stubble brushing her ear. Lips that barely touches it's curve. Tentatively, like a child. She knows he is smelling her up. Inhaling. _Weird. _But he is so near. And she has to breathe. She has to. She pulls in sharply, taking him in and to her surprise he doesn't stink of mothballs and old cigarettes. _Oh god_.

Nutmeg, he smells like nutmeg and cardamom. Clean, warm, spicy. Delicious. If she were that kind of girl, she would swoon then. She would push her nose in the crevice of his neck, his skin and be greedy. But she doesn't. Who knows what risks she dares to take? None probably. Lips, his hot breath stroking her ear. The fragrance of him. Perfection.

" Alrighty then! It's a date…" he whispers so that it tickles her ear and she almost swats him away. Her heart leaps a mile.

Then he does something extraordinarily.

Something rivalling both time-travel and smoke monsters.

He literally skips off her porch, like an exuberant little nylon-clad orange puppy. Insanely and obscenely abnormal behaviour for him. He bounces down the steps, beaming. Her chin hits the porch, mouth open wide in disbelief, she thinks, she must surely be dreaming this crap up.

Miles skipping down the street, hippety-hop, throws her a glance backwards. She can see the sparkle of white teeth and from afar and then he gives her a little jolly wave. She falls headlong back on the porch and hits her head on the teak floorboards. A lingering fragrance of nutmeg. Her fingertips touches her ear where his lips were.

_It's nothing special. _


	2. Not what he wants

Decided to continue this one. Because Miles is a fantastic character and deserve bit of love and attention. This chapter is from Mile's POV. Sorry if it is a bit predictable….

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" So have you like asked her out yet?"

Hugo hovers around his table as he is trying to eat his lunch in peace. _Man, what's a guy gotta do around here?_ Having a giddy Heffalump circling around the table certainly doesn't help. He knows this is a cruel thing to think, but come on! He finds instantaneous sympathy for Rabbit and his constant pissyness with Pooh, Lumpy and the Roo-crew.

" What are you on about buddy-boy?" he spits. Eyes surly on the food. It's bad enough as it is, no need to open up to the _Dharma Gazette_.

" Move along H. Trying to eat here!" he snaps tetchily when Hugo doesn't make a sign to have understood.

Hugo chuckles so that his tummy shakes the tray in his hands and lumbers off saying cheerfully: " You pissed her off real bad last night you know!" Smart move Miles!"

Miles gives his food the once over, and holds up a desiccated chicken-leg gingerly between the tip of his index finger and thumb. Studying it closer, nose bunched up and lips pinched in disgust.

" If I were you I'd pay more attention to my cooking. How did you manage to mummify the chicken? It's bone-dry dude! Is this sauce or embalming liquid? " he retorts but Hugo laughs like a lunatic Santa, paying no heed to the insult.

" I'm just telling you like it is. Gotta' step up your game, bro'!"

Miles resist the urge to flip him the bird and continues to dissect the dried out geriatric carcass Hugo is trying to pass off as food.

----------------------------------------------------

_Kate is one fucked-up girl. _

Man, that lady's got some issues. He won't even go there.

He admits that obviously he is a bit of a freak himself. But at least he hasn't killed anyone. Besides, she has been through almost all of the guys of the camp by now.

Well,..two at least. And he isn't very keen to go where Jimmy-boy has been.

He's had his share of chicks. You wouldn't believe it, but in some crowds, freaky sells. Nah, he isn't afraid of the comparison, but man, who knows where that guy has been? Jack; drug addict yeah, and well, everyone knows how that story goes. Nah, at first that option didn't look very attractive at all.

It hasn't been easy since he arrived here. Clearly, choices are limited. Look, whom the heck can he date? It'd be gross, to say the least, to screw any of the chicks here. There are some lookers alright but come on; they are all at least 30 years older. He imagines meeting them one day. Back in the real world, varicose veins and sagging jowls.

And his mom is here. I mean, how creepy would it be to sleep around with her friends?

_Creepy._

Up till recently, that line of thinking has only left Juliet as a potential candidate, and frankly she scares him. He doesn't understand how Lafleure does it. She is a babe alright, all that golden hair and he had thought her intelligent before she hooked up with Jimmy. But man, may one say; ice-queen! He shrivels at the mere thought.

Miles doesn't do complicated. Considering the talking with dead-thingy, yadayada.., and so on, it seems wise to keep the rest of your life simple. That has always been his position. At first, when Hugo had breathlessly (man, that guy is such a little gossip-girl) updated him on all the sordid details of Kate's entanglement with Jack and the big La-F., Miles had quickly scratched her off his list of possible candidates. The ink hadn't even had time to dry before she was erased. An action that left the list ridiculously short. He had a brief encounter with the blond giggling Cindy working at the storage hall. But then the whole ick-feeling and varicose veins sort of put an end to that. And so the list dwindled to zero.

Nah, fucked up wasn't really what he was looking for. He doesn't know exactly when it happened. He guesses that it just sort of sneaked up on him, this sudden fascination. Sounds sentimental and sissy-like to admit that she grew on him. He'd watch her. At first, purely because, let's face it, she's a bit of a babe, and it was pretty darn entertaining to watch the casualties dragging behind in her backwater. Especially since she is far too self absorbed to realize the fizzle she causes. Jack is like a sick puppy-dog, mooning around kookier than a bag of crazy. Lafleure, badly feigned indifference. Putting on quite good show with it, pretending she is air when his dame is around. Juliet with her constant; _what's-she-got _puzzlement, permanently poised in Kate's direction. Like she was trying to solve a fricking riddle. What Miles find most amusing is that Kate doesn't even realize that she is the object of their frenzied attention.

But it has become an addiction. He watches her trying so desperately to hide her jealousy. Her pained bravado in face of the golden couple, Jim and Juliet. He watches her wretched attempts to be kind to Jack at the same time giving him the cold shoulder. Sitting alone on that porch, night after night. Her loneliness. He watches, at first detached, disinvested, like one might follow some weird foreign critter on National Geographics.

A pathetic weak creature.

He has a vague picture of how she was when he first saw her, when they were fresh off the freighter. A different person. Hard-nosed, unyielding. Alive. Chasing around like a manic person across the island at every little opportunity. How she duped Lafleure and Locke, so that he could blackmail Ben. And he realizes that she must have lost her spirit somewhere along the way. He thinks that [perhaps it started there. With that realization something begins growing. And god knows why, he is not exactly in a position to help anyone, miserable son-of-a-bitch that he is. But it awakens a desire to find that person again. The brassy, _doesn't take crap,_ Xena. The Ms. bossy-boots-warrior princess he first met.

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He woke up happy this morning. Not that he would let it on. Not to anyone. Least of all to Hugo, the ultimate blabber mouth on the island.

Besides. Miles doesn't do happy. It costs more than it pays off.

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After lunch he takes the way past the carpool to reach their little security office. He's got it bad. He knows this because there are at least four alternative routes back to the office building. All of them shorter. This is what he has been reduced to. He tells himself that it is for the off chance that Juliet and Kate might finally have it out. Yeah, he's hoping for a catfight, that's why he takes this way. Yeah, well that, and he hasn't gotten laid in an infinitely, unmentionable amount of time. That'd be enough to unhinge the most levelheaded guy. Even Miles.

_She isn't there. _

The disappointment he feels is total and all encompassing. And totally blown out of proportion. He knows this. He isn't normally prone to exaggerations or melodramas. Still. He has to look. She must be there. Have you any idea how hard it is to invisibly crane your neck as you are walking?

_And there she is. _

Lifting her head up from under the hood of an old jeep. Motor oil on her face, her hair a sweaty mess, cheeks blushed from the heat. He can see every detail all the way from the road. Warrior princess alright. If a little rusty around the corners.

If she smiles,……

At first she just squints as if she is mightily pissed off at someone. Perhaps she is upset about yesterday. Maybe it was a bit harsh. He doesn't even know himself why he said it. He just wanted to crash her equilibrium, wake her up. See some of that rakish 'moxie'-bravado he knows she possesses.

_If she smiles, then I'll speak to her….._

And then, there it is; her dirty, oily fucked-up girl smile that stretches across her whole face like something from the Muppet Show.

He wants to squeal like a girl. Effervescence in his heart. It bubbles, fizzes and reminds him of happiness. _What the heck is wrong with him?_ This isn't f-ing Dawson's Creek.

It doesn't matter. She smiled. At him. He finds himself moving in her direction, careful to keep his arrogance and damned-if-I-cared mask in place. But honestly, it takes both hands. He doesn't know what to say. No plan at hand. If he doesn't do this now, he never will.

" Hi there!"

Brilliant Miles. Fucking brilliant! Why don't you dazzle her some more with your wit?

She stands, oilcan in one hand, dirty rag in the other, expectant. Amused. Dirty overalls sagging in all the wrong places, boyish and knockout gorgeous. Sweat that pearls off her upper lip. She doesn't bother to wipe it off. It thrills him for some reason.

" So about that date…?" he says, trying hard to sound cool and stand-offish. It doesn't mean anything. Don't think it does. Just a joke. It's not as if he has been watching her for months, trying to get the courage up. Watching her loneliness. Holding her pitiful, pointless nightly guard on her porch. Her broken heart. Not that he cares at all.

His pulse beats in staccato_. _

" I'm not gonna sleep with you Miles." She throws the words at him carelessly. Neck defiant and proud. Patient voice suitable for three-year olds and idiots. Yep, he is just a fat big joke.

" I said date. If I'd wanted to get laid I'd have asked someone who pays a bit more attention to personal hygiene", he says dryly, hiding behind his slick cover of snark. " Or someone with lot's of money." Addendum, for extra protection.

The color of her cheeks deepening, he notices as she tips her chin up at him in a disdainful nod. Her eyes the shade, openness and warmth of an armored military tank. He almost wants to duck but she beats him to it.

" Stick a sock in it Miles!" She says brusquely as she bows down behind the hood again.

_Hard-ass._

He feels like he has lost this one. He turns around, wet dog, ears drooping, with his tail between his legs. Then, her muffled voice from within the car's intestines.

"You've charmed me alright. I will go out with you. Eight o'clock Miles. You can pick me up at eight o'clock."

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Aw crap, it takes all of his self-control (and he's got plenty) to calm the ridiculously jaunty bounce in his swagger as he makes his way back to the security office. _Yeah, now, who's the man?_

He capers around the corner of a building and dares to make a little minute,…. alright then; **big fat skippety-skip** in triumph. He is in mid leap when Jin's voice screeches him to a halt:

" You ok Miles?"


	3. The devil is in the details

_**Miles is hot and someone's got a crush. Could it be mutual?**_

**_Dharma-Era fic. Miles, Yin, Dan, Hurley, Kate, Sawyer, Juliet. Chapter 3 up. Yin & Dan "help" Miles prepare for his big date._ **

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**The devil is in the details**_**.**_

They are in their pokey little living room, late afternoon. Miles nerves are wound tighter than piano strings in the hands of an assassin. He can't sit still and is pacing back and forward across the living room while stuffing his face with a soggy cheese sandwich, fidgeting with the zipper on his ugly Dharma security jumpsuit. It's little over an hour and half left. Just one hour – and half. Oh fuck. More prancing around is required.

_She did agree to a date. With him. No shit. _

-----------------------

" You have to…. What do you say? Wooh er, yes, wooh her."

Yin looks disturbingly smug about his abysmal love advice. After all, he is the only one present who is; _married_. _And the conceited bastard is milking it for all it is worth._

_Smug pompous ass_.

Miles anxiety level is climbing more steeply by the second, in direct correlation to Yin's increased involvement. _Why the fuck does he bother_?

The Korean dating code is severely lacking in quality at least in his own ( very reasonable and ) humble opinion. Yin is seriously rubbing him the wrong way with his catch phrases stolen shamelessly from "_Sense and Sensibility_" or some other Victorian crap.

_Arrogant prick._

"Woooh? Wooh!? Dude, is that even a real word?" He puts on a show of looking suitably sceptic and amused but fact is; he needs some sort of advice. He is tcompletely at loss. What the fuck has he gotten himself into? Kate, of all the frigging hippie-chicks in the whole of hippie-town. Unhinged, dippy-ass Kate that comes complete with baggage the size of freakin' Wisconsin.

It hadn't taken much work on Yin's behalf to make Miles spill the beans on the reason behind the sudden upswing in mood-factor. In fact, it had felt almost liberating to tell someone. Now regret is amplifying with every appalling syllable uttered by the self-proclaimed dating-expert.

" Courtship is very important. Yes. When seeking a romantic partner."

_It's just a freakin' date._ And it's just Kate. Why the jitters? Besides, he just wants to get laid. Yep. That's all.

" Romantic partner. For doodelidoo's sake! Who the heck has been giving you English lessons?" He spits, pieces of cheese and breadcrumbs flying like projectiles from his mouth. He smoothes them off his jumpsuit with irritated jerky gestures.

" Juliet."

" Oh for the love of god!". He slaps his hand to his forehead in such a dramatic move that he manages to smash a piece of cheese into his skin.

Yin draws his breath and shakes his head. _Wow, _it's more serious than he had first assumed. Miles wipes the food off his face with the back of his hand and continues to whine while stalking around like a restless pissed-off devil's spawn. _Very, very annoying. Must get him out of the house to have even the remotest chance of watching "Love Boat" tonight_. Yin forces on his most reassuring facial expression and says with an overtly sincere and comforting voice:

" Need to look nice. Don't worry, I fix."

_Eh._

Miles isn't entirely sure he wants to be groomed by Yin. He'll end up looking like something out of a Korean soap opera. Not that Miles would admit to having watched any. Meteor Garden, yeah , that's the one his mom used to watch on cable. Lara had simple tastes when it came to television.

This is the moment that they both become aware of Dan's presence, melting into the furniture and surroundings like a chameleon. He suddenly looks up from his usually spaced-out, catatonic state, and throws the treasured diary on the coach with a chipper moronic smile that scares the living daylight out of his housemates.

" Don't worry, I believe I have just the thing for you, old chap!"

Miles isn't a sentimental guy or soft hearted by any measure. But he can't say no to Daniel Faraday. Never has been able to. Especially since Dan's moments of lucidity are rare and far in between. He is probably the only person on this whole deranged island that Miles can't just flip the bird to. Though right now, he has the sinking feeling that it would unquestionably be exactly the correct reply to Dan's unsolicited offer.

Daniel, all skinny bones, stringy beard and ill fitting corduroy clothes, hoofs it into his room and emerges a few moments later. Beaming like a jacked-up Miss Universe, carrying the most abhorrent, funky-ass 70's style, wine-coloured velour suit ever witnessed by man. The fetid-looking fabric is visibly puckering at the knees and elbows. The velour so well-worn it has developed a bald sheen on all the strategic places. _Yep, that'd get him laid…._ By some deluded misfit with a velour fetish, most likely.

_Wonders if Kate likes velour? _

The suit is thrown on him. Daniel even helps him dress with a frighteningly feverish enthusiasm rarely seen on this side of crazy. Miles can but stand there and let himself be dressed up. Like a little child. He touches the vile sleeve of the suit, carefully, as if it might bite back.

_It is pretty soft. In a dead-mouse-fur sort of way._

Not to be outdone, Yin buggers off only to come back with another crime against humanity. Miles soon finds himself decked out in a ketchup-red tie of such horrendous proportion it is sure to be picked up by the Sputnik's spy cameras somewhere in its orbit around earth. It easily covers Miles' entire chest. He glances down in fear, taking in the whole freaky ensemble.

Wow. _Unbelievable. _

" I look like putrid Korean barbeque meat!"

" Mmm, bulgogi… You making me hungry." Yin keeps a completely straight and sober _trust-me-buddy_-face as if this is entirely normal date-wear. Perhaps it is? It is the 70's after all. And then again, could be the roomies trying to pull a fast one.

" Really Yin-boy! You've gotta' be kidding me!

" Handsome. Very distinguished. She will like it. Red is a very auspicious colour in my country. Very lucky. Yes. Sure marriage."

" Bait. Charm. Cultivate." Dan adds as if ticking off some points on a list." The _charm _stage is crucial my friend. You need this."

" Yeah, yeah buddy-boy. Just stuff it. You are not exactly a reliable expert in this specific area. Stick to the time travel—psycho humbug stuff! And whatever happened to the _whatever-happened-happened_ idea by the way? Should your fugly-ass velour suit make a difference in the grand scheme of things, huh, hah!? " Miles gets up in Daniel's face, trying to gauge a reaction. A useless attempt to fend off the craziness oozing from the lunatic. Dan has zoomed out momentarily or so it seems. Until he hits Miles with his aggravatingly docile voice:

" Who is she?"

The question flutters out in the air as he carefully positions his skinny corduroy clad behind on the worn-down old couch again. For once Dan's mind seems clear as a spring creek and most unfortunately fixated on Miles. It freaks him out and why the fuck can't he lie to this looser? Don't ask don't tell, has always been more of his philosophy. But Dan is watching him now with his mentally-ill-scientist slash homeless-puppy eyes and the cause is just lost. _Better just give it up_.

"It is Kate alright!" he hisses. "One word to Hurley and I will bludgeon you to death with this monstrosity of a tie !" He glowers back at both Dan and Yin with one bloodcurdling sweep of the eyes. Hoping to put the fear of god into both the genius-geek-fashionista and the self-styled Korean dating sage.

But Yin's sole reaction is to drop a disbelieving:

"Pfutt!"

" What man!? _Pfutt?_ What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

The nervousness is making Miles hypersensitive and jumpier than a rabbit on smack.

" Kate is with Jack and Sawyer. Sawyer and / or Jack…yes always Jack or Sawyer, back and forward between Jack and Sawyer. Very confusing. But, never Miles. Never…"

Dan shakes his shaggy head sadly in total and absolute agreement. His forehead wrinkled by compassion and pity.

" Never." he backs Yin up.

Miles is lost for words for a fraction of time. Come to think of it, he has no desire to actually challenge the triangle of doom that is Kate's entourage. The mere thought of her past with the two other guys, makes him absolutely uncontrollably bonkers. Erasing in an instant the cool, dryly sarcastic Miles.

" No. She is not with Jack or Sawyer! There is no more Kate, Jack and Sawyer crap!"

Yin's eyes are ablaze with an ill-willed badly faked innocence, betraying that he is really enjoying this conversation. And very satisfied to have made Miles blow his gasket.

" Aha so, now; Kate, Jack, Sawyer….. And ?"

Admitting that he might as well surrender this argument, he mutters with rancour. More to himself than anyone present in the room:

" Not necessarily in that order buddy, but probably."

"Then you are doomed my friend." Daniels meek effeminate voice floats up from behind the thumbed, greasy old diary. Miles is man enough to accept the simple truth in these words. In a futile attempt to maintain an ounce of dignity he still feels forced to leave the room in a put-on huff telling them both to piss the hell off.

He has a quick shower and he actually shaves. Not that it matters. It is just what he does. For lack of a better plan, he somberly gets gussied up in the borrowed garments.

_Could wear anything_. It doesn't matter. Compared to the security jumpsuit, he actually feels rather dapper in an insanely nauseating crumpled Bee-Gee's way.

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At 7.30 he is on his way. He is really frigging early. He can't be. It will look like he is actually excited about the date. As if he cares. It is bad enough that he wore a tie. And shaved. And got primped up in this monstrous attire.

_And it is just Kate. Just a chick._

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	4. At the boathouse

**Chapter 4.**

In which Miles hopes of getting laid in the near future are crushed. Instead; Hugo gets his groove on in the boathouse with a certain someone. Oh, and someone is getting sloshed beyond reason.

I am veering a bit off the theme in this chapter but I just figured that if Miles get to have a love interest than Hugo probably deserves getting shagged in cramped confinement. He hasn't had much fun since Libby. Hope you enjoy this one!

**----------------------------------**

**Boathouse**

Miles takes a roundabout route circling all the barracks and down towards the boathouse. Just to waste some time. This specific location holds some dear memories to him. _Ah, the fun and games of the old days of yore_. Hand grenades clinched between teeth and Kate helping him blackmail that slimy freak-show. _What fun was had!_

As he nears, the unmistakable sounds of people in the throws of passion, escapes from within the little shack. It isn't surprising. Privacy can be a hard-found commodity in Dharmaville. It isn't exactly teeming with great make-out spots if you don't want to risk getting shot in the ass by the _hostiles_. There sure is some sort of hullabaloo going on in the boathouse this fine evening. He briefly wonders who. A lot of _oh-_ing and _ah_-ing. Miles isn't a prude but this is, well frankly, a bit too much.

_Someone is certainly getting' it on. And very loudly too. _

He hesitates, not knowing exactly why. A flighty feeling of unease, a waft of suspicion wells over him. _He has to see who it is._ At that very moment the door blasts open and two mismatched figures stumbles out, guffawing in unison.

What the freaking frickety fuck?!

There, plump and shiny as a Thanksgiving turkey, is Hugo. Don Juan of the boathouse is revealed in his half naked glory. Large flowery shirt in hand and belt flapping in the wind. A shocking sight of its very own merit but what is truly sickening is the appearance of a flushed and giggling Mrs. Chang in tow, tucking in her clothes.

There's no holding back. No way. A shade of vermillion flushes over his vision, colouring the horrendous, incomprehensible scene in red. If Miles had had a gun handy, he would surely have used it. That is the only thing he knows.

_Hurley must die. Die!_

" You!"

_Amuck, berserk – _call it what you want. Miles mind is blanketed by a deranged fury that explodes from deep within. Vehemently, murderously demented.His fist springs back on its own accord, releases in a fist across Hurley's happy unsuspecting puss. But, for being a large guy, Hugo is amazingly deft and quick. He hits back, probably instinctively, without a clue of his target. Acting on impulse and intuition and Miles is floored like a drunken sailor. He feels the world disappearing in a black haze of fury.

_----------------------------------------_

_Must kill Hurley._

The thought wakes him up. He comes too in such a drastically different setting that he thinks for a moment that he surely must have dreamt it all. Then his head falls sideways and his eyes lock on Hurley.

_Vile gargantuan potbellied Lothario!_

" I'll get you yet – you, you lecherous jumbo sized-Casanova!!!"

He scrambles to get off the bench, noticing that he is one somebody's porch. Looks familiar. His head swims with hot angry fluid and he falls backwards, back into semi darkness, having time to think only that those words came out pretty well for someone who can't even keep his eyes open.

Miles pries his eyes open by sheer will force. He doesn't know how long he has been out of it but when he comes around again Hugo is sitting by his side, looking absolutely fucking miserable_. As he should! Miles _can't even sit up yet. Fat boy packs a hell of a punch. In lack of better options, Miles surrenders to trying to shoot lasers out of his eyes. Wishing his mere thoughts were enough to kill that pudgy lover-boy.

" You giant rotten cheese-ball of a gigolo!" he sneers. Doing his best to drill into Hugo's brain using his evillest look.

" What's it to you?" Hugo's timid voice pisses him off to the brink of another black-out.

" She's a married woman, you daft sleaze-lump!" he wheezes with as much venom as he can muster. His hands flinches across trying to encircle Hugo's thick neck in one swift move. Hugo hardly notices as he absentmindedly but forcefully grabs both of Miles hands with one large paw and gently returns them to Miles chest. Miles feels like a stubbed child.

" You need to rest. Sorry about the, ehum,…the, yeah you know." He points towards his own eye, indicating that this is where he punched out Miles lights. Miles is to hissed up to even make the connection.

" You fucking idiot!"

He merely shakes his fist feebly in Hurley's face like an irate grandpa. His head pounds and he has run out of all the good name-calling. Can't think of anything better.

Hurley looks slightly embarrassed but not guilty. Not guilty at all.

" We're in love." He blushes beetroot red from neck to hair. Astonishing. Miles is left speechless. Mouth agape as he takes in his potential stepfather. Sick. Absolutely, fucking sick. _This can't be happening._ _Mom, Hurley….oh yeah, this is so on. Bloody time-travel fucked up universe. Not enough with the talking-with-dead balooba!_

" Sorry buddy, got real a shiner going on there."

Hugo points a thick finger in the middle of his face. Miles slaps it away as he suddenly realizes. Time, oh crap. Date. Kate. 8 o'clock.

" Great. This is just great too! Freaking' fan-fucking-tastic. Just in time for my date."

_Argh. Ugh. Crap_. The secret that must not be spoken. He blames it on his emotionally fragile state and the present turbulence.

Hugo's ears peak up reaching the pinnacle of his head. Like two fucking parabola's sticking out from his ridiculously shiny hair.

_Uhu.., danger._

"Date? Oh the clothes…Yeah, I was just wondering what the deal is… So hot date huh, so who is…."

Miles decides to leg it. He doesn't know from where he finds the strength but he manages to heave himself off from the bench and then runs for dear life. Legs like propellers across the lawn. Dizzy and dry-mouthed with an eye that is swelling shut as he runs.

_That elephantine philanderer!_

See, he had one more in him.

He is three hours late. For a moment he considers not going at all. She will be pissed off. _But hot_. _She's pretty hot when she gets all angry and flustered_. With that image in his mind, he takes three long leaps up on her porch and knocks slightly too boisterously.

No answer. He knocks harder. He feels like a ginormous wack-head in his suit, a' la mode' 1975, wide lapels and burgundy velour, blood stains on his beige shirt. And the fugly-ass tie that he suddenly realizes clashes quite violently with the burgundy. But goes quite well with the blood.

_Fuck! Too late._

She is probably asleep by now.

Not that he cares or anything. Not like he has a bunch of hysterically wild moths flapping around in his belly or anything. _Like bats in the belfry._

The door isn't locked. Unable to stop himself he lets himself in.

_And there she is._

He finds her boozed up. Curled up on her sofa. Still dressed in her oily work overalls, dirty and smelly. Completely and totally out of this world. Her hair would put Medusa to shame. She stinks, literally stinks of motor-oil and gasoline. If he lights a cigarette now she will surely say 'poof' and pulverize into a dark cloud.

He leans down, touches her shoulder gingerly. _Ugh. What the fuck was he thinking, asking her out?_ She is such a screw-up. And she has obviously downed an entire bottle of vodka. She sleeps peacefully with the empty evidence of her binging clasped lovingly against her chest. A beautiful sight.

_Great. Really fucking fantastic._

Not like he has looked forward to this or anything.

Zero. Null, exertion to look (or smell) presentable on her part. Not even a shower!

He feels humiliated and offended beyond reason and convention. _Nullified. _A feeling amplified into mammoth proportion by the fact that _he has _made an effort_. _

_He has even shaved. And he is wearing a fucking tie, the size of Argentina._

" You must really have the hots for me to get this dolled up" he mutters while trying to decide whether to turn around or stay with her.

She is obviously far too sloshed to even register who he is. Even less able to answer back.

Funky smelling babe. Extraordinarily inebriated. Reeking like a five day old shrimp soaked up in an oil spill. Not so much sugar and vanilla. She moans like a dying whale and he estimates that the risk of hurling is considerable and realistic. He rummages around in the pantry and the only thing he comes up with is a large frying pan. _Well, that's gotta' do for now._

He puts it down beside her. Hoping she will actually manage to hit it if she has to puke.

_She is pretty cute though._

Oh, ugh, he can't believe the crap his mind comes up with but still, as he looks at her. He can't help it. Lips pouting like a little sullen kid. Cheeks flushed from the alcohol.

She throws one of her arms above her head in a violent jerky movement that has him fearing for the safety of the Vodka bottle. Wouldn't want glass splinters on the floor on top of the existing disaster he argues as he leans forward to take it from her other hand. Her foul-smelling overalls are zipped down low at the chest and falls open as he sneaks the bottle out of her grip. An expanse of light smooth skin is suddenly visible in the gapping opening. _Sweet Jeezus._ No bra. _Well, couldn't really ask for more in a hot date. _Might actually make it to second base without passing first. Excellent opportunity.

_Question is, how much of a sleaze-bag can one be? _

As Miles ponders the virtue of chivalry he fails to notice the door opening behind him.

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	5. So not worth it

_Ridiculously grateful for the kind reviews. Thanks!_

**Chapter 5.**

**Mrs. Chang's getting it on with Hugo. But for Miles all that serious date primping was for nothing, girl's zonked out cold . Miles is caught between doing the right thing or acting the pig. Someone walks in and some seriously senseless violence ensues. Poor Miles. It doesn't appear as if he will get laid anytime soon. **

**Mission Interrupted**

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Miles is no gentleman. For sure. But he isn't a downright doochbag. He sneaks a brisk little peak. _Yeah. _Surely he deserves that much. Fucked–up date debacle and all. Getting all dolled up in Daniel's threadbare vintage haute couture. For a zonked out, stinking princess, snoring it up like Babe the pig. _Yup_. He has earned the right.

_Mm-hum_.

Not bad. Freckles on her chest. A light splatter of tiny little dots right down to the cleft between her rather small boobs. Very deserving of some indecent exposure.

_Cute._

_Oh snap out of it!_ He is so screwed, there are not even words for it. His hand whisks out on its own initiative. Freakishly independent, like something from the Addams' Family. Suspended inches away from her. _Get a grip Miles!_ - She is practically pickled in booze. And what's the game in getting to second base if the other player is downright incapacitated? He is no gentleman but he isn't that much of a low-life hog either.

And just as he reaches down, intending to cover her up with her overalls - an _all out infernal pandemonium_ breaks loose.

Out of nowhere, some maniac pounces on him. Someone of considerable bulk and strength. Like a rabid bat out of hell in a full-blown assault. Bone-hard knuckles that pound on him, in blind uncoordinated onslaught. Miles can only squeak:

" Stop, stop it, stop it, stop it! " Frightened now, trying to shield his face from further attack from his assailant with both of his arms.

"Stop it you big crazy oaf!" he screeches in a voice that he isn't proud of.

The unidentified clodhopping goon manages to get a good one in – right smack in the middle of Miles' already bruised face. A nauseating crunch across his schnoz and he just knows that he won't be a pretty sight tomorrow. He has time to think that Daniel will be heartbroken if he gets blood all over the precious suit. As they grapple, they both topple over across Kate's legs, Miles face down with his attacker on top. _Ugh._ Beasty-boy catches him in a chokehold, pressing his head down like a piece of dough into the couch. Between Kate's - lets be honest - less than heavenly fragrant naked feet. She doesn't even stir in all the commotion. Out cold – she must have downed an entire bottle of moonshine. He can feel the freak's heavy huffing and puffing tickling his neck. _Mustn't upset him. Wants to live._

" What the fuck is wrong with you?! Get off me – you moron!" His own wheezing voice is muffled by the pea-green sofa fabric and doesn't sound nearly as assertive as he had intended.

" Miles?" pants a bewildered bigfoot, blowing out his breath so fast that Miles feels the hair on the back of his head lift upwards. Hyperventilating like a whale on dry land. Miles being the poor accosted land in this figure of speech.

" Get off me LaFleure! Unless this is you _getting off on_ me for fucks sake!" he yelps into the sofa, getting pieces of green lint up his gums as he attempts to speak.

It takes a moment before James comes out of his mental paralysis and he slowly, sluggishly lets go of Miles' nearly decapitated neck. As he unclasps the throttle-grip-of-death, he quickly shifts to make a tight fist around Miles blanket-sized tie and pulls him up in a semi-sitting position. Face to face. Man to man.

" What the hell you doin' molestin' a dipsotose woman!? You - you nutcake!" A gust of air hits Miles face in the wind speed of James' anger as he spits out the words.

Miles feels his windpipes tightening under James' conversion of the tie into a noose. He gesticulates in wild panic pointing at his poor neck and he is nearly well and done asphyxiated when James seems to come too and blinks a bit stupidly as he lets go of his clasp. He pats the large flap of fabric down with an absentminded fatherly reassurance.

As he straightens up, he shoves his straw colored hair away from his forehead and flips it backwards, in his usual cocky, albeit somewhat bewildered, gesture.

Miles' hand reaches up to his throat where moments earlier James' paws have made a mark. Will wear a turtleneck tomorrow. _Wonders if it will look weird in the heat?_ Both eyes are almost swollen shut. Poetic justice he guesses, now himself on the receiving end. But not quite the same. _She's not Jimmyboy's frigging mom_.

James silently ogles the revolting man in front of him – seemingly taking it all in. Eyes narrowed in deep contemplation of Miles battered physique clad in clothes seemingly accursed with syphilis. He scans him slowly from top to bottom. Not quite sure what to make of it. He bites his bottom lip in apparent amusement as he finalizes his scrutinizing once-over with his conclusion:

"My, my -…. big mother-fucking-ass of a tie, Mao!" he leers in pretended fear. Eyes round in mock trepidation as he fakes a tremble with his entire body.

" Woooo, scareeey…"

" Yeah, yeah, hilarious," Miles deflects dryly as he suddenly realizes the ramifications of taking fashion advice from the deluded savant and his Korean sidekick. And a sudden relief washes over him. Kate's decision to crawl into the bottle has saved his sorry behind from a more devastating humiliation than death.

_What the heck was he thinking?! _

James leans his head to the side, seemingly in deep thought. Scheming slyness and cheekiness written all over his despicably handsome features. Miles shivers as he sees the beginning of dimples forming. Crap, that asshole will make him eat this – for eternity.

" Sooo…What's up with all the pimpin' chichi-ness?"

Miles doesn't deign him with an answer. Just mopes sullenly as James' silly mug breaks up into the widest of possible grins, all teasing cruelness and evil amusement:

"You look hoochie as hell man!"

To add insult, he throws himself straight into a little limbo dance, _al' improviso'_, feet placed wide, head thrown backwards in the air and both hands in exaggerated peace signs, laughing rather too loudly, too demeaning, swinging his ass left and right.

" Groooovey man. Wuhuu. Peace out brother!" he hoots, having a swell old time. Extremely pleased with himself, he chuckles while he attempts to get a hold of himself. He manages to extricate himself from his funky move and quickly gets back to business_. _

_Bah, this is getting boring_.

Miles shifts uneasily as LaFleure gets back to eye-squinting and re-enacting the serious, authoritarian, Big Bad Head of Security role. Miles doesn't know how to react_._ So he sulks. First, the big ass has the gall to beat him to a pulp. On top of that the making fun of the suit and entertaining himself royally on Miles expense. _It is just not on_!

" What the hell do you think you're doing? Kate of all the Dharma chicks – ya nitwit!"

" What's it to you? - Jealous?"

It is a struggle to see anything at all, the result of James' vicious craftsmanship swelling up much faster than Hugo's did. There's doubtlessly some sting in that ape's fists but the taunting hurts a hell of a lot more.

" Just answer - what the fuck are you doing here - taking advantage of a juiced up, half-dead woman. Only thing you can get your hands on!?"

" Mmimomumem", some mumbo jumbo nonsense comes from the depth of the sofa accompanied by a gust of alcohol.

They both look over at the snoring, drooling excuse for a woman.

_Aaaw. She is a bit of a babe even with saliva on her chin._

James watches from Miles to Kate and back to Miles, seemingly in slow motion. Then suddenly with a quick jerky movement, James springs to action and briskly tugs at the overalls to cover the disgustingly inebriated Kate up. She must be so far gone not to have woken up during all of the ruckus. Completely over the top; tanked-out-drunk.

_Not a bad rack though_, Miles reminiscences.

" Hey, eyes straight forward, you skinny-ass scumbag of a perv!"

" Wasn't looking." Miles' split bottom lip extruding in a childish, petulant pout.

" So what's with the orphan-molester debauchee-suit? Some kind of disguise on your nightly peeping-pervie-prowls? You sick son of a bitch!"

Miles glowers back as best he can with eyes increasingly buried in toad-like swelling fat-folds. It isn't easy. More a matter of trying to meekly (_peep, no sorry…_) peer out than any actually proper, dignified glaring.

" Not that it 's any of your business – but - we had a date."

James watches Miles in complete and utter incredulity, gets himself caught in a bizarrely skeptical giggle that sounds more like hick-ups and frankly quite ridiculous on a grown man.

" Aha - I see- Kate is as drunk as a skunk; passed out in her dirty old work clothes. She must have really thought this date somethin'-somethin'!" James jeers at him in a cutesy sing-song voice, with ill-concealed glee. It is too great of an opportunity to get one over Miles – James just can't let that one go by.

" Yeah, yeah. You can gloat all you want". Miles mutters. _After all, he is the boss. Mustn't piss off the boss. Long arm of the law and all._

" Oh, ah, I get it! I get the lure buddy. - This must really be your kind of dream date, _mister-talks-to –dead-people!_ Right?" James' exaggerated drawl is unbearable chaffing. Sharp nails on a blackboard. _Hawhawhaw._

" She isn't dead."

" Well, she damn well ain't much alive. She practically got rigor mortis," he shrugs as he tilts his head and raises his eyebrows, and fires off a wolfish smirk.

" You don't even know what that means you thick hick." He hates him.

" Might be simple but ain't _that_ dim, Djengis."

Miles breaks the surly eye contact and clambers back up from his punched out position on the sofa. Moving Kate's (honest to god; stinking) feet to the side he sits up properly while throwing one quick painful gaze down the direction of her face. Absentmindedly he finds himself gawking at the passive provocateur and sole source of his current miseries. _Dude, that chick really can't hold her drink for shit. _

James doesn't miss a trick. He follows Miles lingering glance at Kate's passed-out pissed-out-of-her-mind face. It's like witnessing some kind of circus freak-show. James' mind boggles over the transformation as he watches Mile's hostile over-the-top grumpiness, replaced momentarily by icky blossoming goo-gooness. Ha! _Confirmation complete_. A sly smile sprouts on James' smug good-old-boy features.

_Oh, yes. He's been totally had - the poor miserable dumb-ass!_

" Aaaw - ya poor dog. You're so the smitten kitten!"

Miles makes a big show out of shrugging it off, trying to pull off looking properly arrogant and unaffected. _Uh-hu, no way_. He is not giving that asshole one more crumb to badger him with. The redneck is like a blood-hound who has picked up on a trail. Hot on his heels. Miles has to beat him off, if not literally then well, yeah….

" Just looking to get laid." Miles is as blasé as they come. As aloof and cavalier as the throbbing puffiness of his face allows.

_It is frigging difficult to look arrogant when your eyes feel like two bloated hot soufflés. _

James has got his teeth in and won't let go. The entire man practically sparkles with wicked amusement as he pokes Miles with another sharp stick:

" Nope, nup, nix – sorry, I ain't picturing that buddy-boy. Just ain't never gonna happen."

Conceited ass! But Miles isn't a complete idiot. He knows what this is. He spots a minute, tiny, microscopic trace of something in James' seemingly confident eyes. He can't help smiling himself as he realizes that he has uncovered a quiver of jealousy, alive and kicking at the very core of Mr. tough-guy. _Kate and Miles_.

_Ha-ha. Didn't see that one coming huh? Not in a million fricking years!_

The delight lifts him up high and his brain stops functioning. Can't pull a fast one on James. He knows this. He fucking knows this and still the verbal diarrhea is unstoppable. The words spill out of him, with as much bad-assness as he can muster under James' scrutinizing eyes:

" She seems easy enough Jimbo. I mean - she even screwed you - from what I've heard. Bear cage right? Cheesy, dude …."

_U-hu_…

Miles regrets the words as soon as they dribble down his stupid lips. James' nostrils flare up, madder than a bull with his balls tied up. Bristles risen in attack-mode - froth at the mouth.

" What a crock of shit!" He growls as he shoves his face up against Miles'. He smells beer and testosterone. And lavender. _Hah, Juliet's soft touch_. He isn't half as tough as he seems. Still, it is kind of unnerving to have a pit-bull terrier foaming at the mouth – even one that smells like your granny.

" Lemme' catch ya agin with her and **I - will - kill – ya - you goddamn deviant**!"

Miles does consider this. He really does. It is either having a sizzling crazed LaFleure blowing fire at his sorry ass the rest of his living days here on the island or …well, agree with him. He acts all meek and nods slowly. Sincere, pretended agreement. _Yes sir, yes sirey, Mr. Jimmy-boy._ The exaggerated Southerness in James' enunciation is enough to scare the freaking nancy-pants of him. Luckily the velvet trousers fit quite snuggly around his frightened little Encino-tush.

" Sure thing boss," he parries, trying to keep the alarm out of his voice. Shit, he really got more than he bargained for. He almost salutes the deranged southerner. Feeling like a boy scout caught with his pants down. At least he got a first hand preview of her boobies out of it. _But hell,…hell no!_

_Fuck Kate. It isn't bloody worth it!_

LaFleure goes on and on – threatening, swearing and threatening some again, but Miles has effectively zoomed out.

----------------

" I ain't telling ya agin! Sounds like he is finally finalizing the bla-bla-blah speech. And with that, he calms down slightly, straightens up his stance and seems to give Miles a charitable look for the first time in the whole chain of events. Unfortunately this perceived sympathy sets off a flood-wave of self-absorbed moaning and an abundance of self-pity.

"Damn man. Dude, I don't have unrealistically high expectations" he whines feeling supremely sorry for himself. "But it would have been just fucking great to have one – just one- stupid date with someone who is not 30 years older with tits that you can fold like pancakes or somebody who is **not **fooped out of her fucking mind." Miles can't help the griping. He hasn't felt this big of a fuck-up for ages. And that it would turn out like this with her, it just plain sucks.

" Dude – you get it right?"

" Yup, yeah. Totally man. Well yeah, we take what we can get. An' it was a good try an' all buddy" James nods vaguely at Jin's and Daniel's foul phlegm inducing garments.

"Though - a tad dodgy pal - dontcha' think?" He adds after a bit of reconsideration.

Miles lifts his fingers to his bludgeoned face, carefully checking the extent of the damage. _Eeek_, feels like gelatinised mush. _Must get some ice on it. Will never look the same. _He wipes the bloody grume from his still oozing nose on Jin's tie. Ridiculously grateful that he was practically forced to wear it after all. _It came in handy. _

The look on James' face as he stares pointedly at the noose-wiping action freaks Miles out. James' voice is not entirely devoid of compassion as he takes in the casualty of his own handiwork:

" Well, well, well…. _Dim Sum_, don't you look like chimpanzee's ass my friend?"

" Well' yeah, that's what happens when everybody finds it fit to clobber you"

" What d'ya mean – everybody? Who else? - _Kate?"_ James is suddenly equipped with a grotesquely hopeful little crooked half grin.

" Hah, she made quite a dent in you huh? Can't have been all my doing chump. Only punched you once….maybe twice but that's not all my doing, that - I mean that – mess." His finger wavers in the vicinity of Miles' desecrated nose and two perfectly symmetric shiners and he scrunches his whole face in ill-contained disgust.

"Hugo,…" Miles sighs in place of a proper answer and gesticulates vaguely towards his puffy rainbow-colored right eye ." And you, you prick!" he adds quietly as he sloppily indicates his bunged up nose and the swollen shut left eye.

" Hugo,… yeah right!? That boy is meek as a kitten. What did ya do to piss him off?"

Miles blood starts simmering to a boil as he remembers the sight of chubby and the beautiful young rosy-cheeked version of his mom as they fell out of the boathouse all flushed with giggling lovey-doveyness. His voice climbs to the brink of breaking, reminiscent of his teenage years. He doesn't care. Doesn't care. The anger is over him like a tsunami.

" What – did - I - do!?"

He is genuinely upset and hurt. It all is fucking unfair!

" Ask that giant mother-fucking (_literally_) adulterer what he is doing banging Mrs. Chang! In the mother-fucking boathouse!"

James, just stares at him. The air in Kate's stuffy living room stands still for a moment. The next second he explodes in one big snorting hoopla-ha of a laughter. He laughs so hard that he falls back on the sofa, across Kate's legs. She whines a bit in her sleep, tries to kick him off but goes right back to the snoring and the drooling. The chortling is so violent that he has to gasp for air, face; tomato red and glowing from the hilarity of it all as he tries to crawl up in a standing position

" Yeah, yeah . Good one!" he manages to squeeze out in between the sniggering and the hee-haw. " Oh my. Sweet jayzuss, you're cracking me up some – Hugo – Mrs. Chang! Your are so damn sick man!"

Miles lets the giggling attack ebb out. He sticks his potato shaped beak in the air while regarding James' undignified puerile behavior with pure contempt.

" So, now; Fifi La Fou, explain to daddy why do you have your panties in a bunch about this?" James heaves as he wipes the tears from his eyes with the back of his hands. Big soppy wet droplets splattering like tropical rain.

Miles, having regained his composure, clinches his teeth in a jaw-breaking attempt to stay cool. He is slick with indignation.

" Mrs. Chang - is my mother."

The excessive jolliness evaporates in a loud sucking swoosh. At first, the big security head only gapes dumbly. His baby blues wide open like a deer in headlights.

" Well, that ain't right I tell ya!" he gnarls as his chops sets in what Miles recognizes as a dangerous warning sign.

" Now it's time for you to vamoose little fellow. I will take care of this. It ain't right and Hobo the Humpin' slobo could endanger all of us here with his dallying with the Changs. She has a baby for crying out loud!"

" Yeah, I know she has a baby. – Me!" Miles points a miffed finger towards his disgruntled claret-colored chest as he claws his way off the sofa corner. He gives Kate's crummy feet a little affectionate good-bye and thanks for the boob-peak-pat and staggeringly gets to his feet.

"You? Naw, nope, no way, njet, nix…. That cute little bugger ain't you. No way." James shakes his head so that his hair whips in his face. Miles feels strangely hurt at first. But then clear as daylight he witnesses how the wheels start turning in LaFleure's brain. The cogs lining up and falling into place – one by one. For all the smart-alecky attitude the Southerner possesses Miles knows him to irritatingly quick-witted. Within seconds he knows the Dharma head of security has a plan in place, all grim and daunting.

He literally shoos Miles the hell out of the house.

Now git! Get goin'! Skedaddle away from here kiddo'! I have big fish to fry – literally!" he mutters as he shoves Miles towards the door.

Finding himself moving faster than he is practically able to. He reaches for the handle for leverage. _Better leave Jimmy-boy be_. _Jimmy-boy and his big Jimbo plan for Jumbo._ It feels curiously satisfying to have made both of his problems LaFleur's problems. Both the vodka and motor-oil marinated girl on the sofa and that monstrous crumpet of a skirt-chaser.

_Liberating. He feels a ton lighter._

"Night ya'all!" he hollers cheerfully in a mock southern accent as he makes his escape.

_**Reviews and feedback welcome, good and bad! **_

_**And sorry for all the swearing – I tend to get a bit carried away. Feedback if you want me to cool it off a bit.**_


	6. Saints and sinners

_**A little Suliet misunderstanding with devastating results. Two fellow sinners are sent to detention. Exiled. Polar bear poop awaits.**_

**Saints and sinners**

James is abandoned with the repugnant duty to fend for the sloshed bozo. He sits his ass down next to her, cradling his forehead in his hands, arms resting on his knees. He is so tired of this. It has been one thing after another since _they_ got back to the island. He wishes them all to hell.

He and Julie had been happy.

Truly, frigging normal, magnificently_ boring Sunday-dinner-and-felt-slipper-domestic _happiness. Until _they_ showed up.

He has some serious thinking to do. What a freakin' can of worms he unwittingly stumbled upon, Had he known, he would have let Miles make himself welcome to Kate's unguarded bosom. He wishes that Miles could have kept his big snarky clap closed. Really doesn't need this right now!

He has no clue as what to do. Goddamn pickle. Thanks to decadent _Dumbo_ and his two-timing adulteress of a conquest! As hypocritical as it might seem to be pissed off at Hugo for the affair, considering James own glorious past of serial seduction, he still is _livid_ at him. A love-struck Hurley on the loose is an immense security risk by any means and has to be dealt with _pronto_.

He _must_ have this problem licked before Horace hears the first thing of it. And worse yet, before Dr. Chang figures out that the untalented plebeian communal cook is scratching an itch with his lovely wife. They really can't afford to take any chances. He in particular. Not now.

And Kate, like the cherry on top of all of his headaches. He bestows her the evil eye. Quite futile considering the state she is in. He surrenders to resting his eyes on her snoring mouth and he can feel himself softening inside. Her lips half open, agape and jaw slack in total relaxation. Looks like a little kid – well; apart from the overwhelming stink of booze that is. He feels sorry for her. There is nowhere around it. _Move on baby - it's time to move on – he wants to tell her_. He wishes she would. She deserves some happiness. Some boring good old bland normalcy. Must have had pretty shit-crappy life too.

" What…where is.. what..?"

A birdlike squeaky noise tears up from the sofa. Kate's bloodshot eyes peer out under heavy liquored-up lids. _Fresh as a homeless hobo_. Oh crap. Her face has a slime-green unhealthy sheen to it. He knows she is going to be sick. He just knows it. He looks around and notices a big fat frying pan on the floor below the sofa. He slumps down, bending forward to pick it up. Just as he raises himself again, Kate's upper body jerks forward violently and her stomach empties in a wild fountain that splatters everywhere - _except_ - into the frying pan.

James feels like a right arse sitting there holding a large cooking utensil pointlessly in front of them both. He wants to hurl himself as the liquid seeps into the front of his uniform. She looks like something a goat spewed up. And her spasmodic movement has caused the flap of her overall to fly open so that she has vomit all over naked her chest.

" Oh, no, no. No no no." she whimpers as she falls backwards again. Miserable as hell, but mercifully, still out of her mind.

For a second, he doesn't know what to do. Damn. _She is so fucked-up._ He grabs the first thing he finds which happens to be s small crocheted coaster off the table and attempts to dab off the worst with it. Ridiculously small. It hardly makes a dent in all the toss-up. He is only making it worse, smearing it out. _Eeek._

He halts as he hears _her_ voice and has enough time to think; oh shit – this isn't what it seems.

" James! Are you there? What is……?"

Juliet, dressed for bed in her white flowing nightgown that he got for her last birthday. Her own arms wrapped tensely around her midriff as she nudges the door open with her elbow. She seems to be digesting the scene in front of her. She swallows heavily but her eyelids don't move a fraction. She doesn't even blink as she watches them with cool, contained dignity.

" What's going on James", she asks with that patient, neutral voice that he has learned to both respect and be completely petrified of.

Juliet's samurai-sword sharp brain. Her crisp watchful intelligence scans the situation, slices up the elements systematically and with frightening precision for further analysis.

_And it doesn't add up._

She is one razor sharp woman – he knows her to be his superior in almost all departments. It ain't ever possible to fool her, this he knows.

Though lately she has changed. He has noticed a tiny shift in her demeanor since the others joined them at Dharmaville. There's a hint of insecurity and a lack of confidence that he doesn't recognize. For years he has basked in her glorious self-assurance, her strength and her poised gutsiness. He has grown to love exactly that.

He is no wimp. God knows his not scared of a little fight but he loves that she has never ever lost an argument between them. She always wins. Every friggin' argument in their whole entire relationship. It is impossible to argue with her. _The only woman that has ever given him a home, a place, a belonging._ The look of her when she is at her most aggravated, rosy cheeks and burning eyes that flicker with pure flint-hard intelligence. This is when he finds her the most beautiful. And he lets her win. Always.

But she is not angry now. She is eerily calm and just stands there. They are both unable to move. He forces himself to throw the crocheted monstrosity of a cloth on the floor and attempts to meet her anxious eyes. His heart breaks a bit as he sees the fear, the doubt, and the panic that clouds them.

" Kate's had a bit too much to drink baby. I need some help here if your don't mind."

It sets her in motion. She takes charge of the situation with irritatingly capable efficiency she's got. He watches her in awe, backtracking towards the door, towards freedom, as she ushers him on out.

" It's ok, I'll take care of her. Go ahead James. You just go home and get cleaned up."

_Fucking angel is what she is. _

-----------------------------------------------

Juliet watches the other woman's dismal attempts at remaining standing. Long-legged Bambi on thin ice. Her naked feet keep sliding on the slippery bathroom tiles. Juliet feels an unexplainable surge of compassion for the other. She imagines that weren't it for the men between them, they might even have been friends. _No - who's she kidding?_ Not friends perhaps but friendly. She used to like the spark in Kate, the silly girlish bravado and the hardheaded doggedness. But it seems that some of that has been lost during the three years away, in the real worlds. Juliet wonders briefly, if it was Jack who killed it off or simply the void left by _him_, her James – Kate's Sawyer.

_Kate doesn't seem to do that well_

She is unnervingly inebriated. Blind drunk Her eyelids struggle to stay open. Juliet has her upper arm in a gentle but strong grip as she helps her rinse off the worst of the mess she has made of herself. She can feel the lean muscles in Kate's arm as she sway's in Juliet's clasp. Kate mumbles incessantly in a drunken nonsensical drivel. Juliet cannot make sense of any of it. Not that she even tries.

" Eyes….he….always follows...he is... Shouldn't…smells nutmeg…his mouth… "

" Ok there, there. Stay put a little while longer Kate. We're almost done."

The water is chilly to help her sober up but as far as Juliet can tell, a fat load of nothing is the difference it makes. Maybe a pot of coffee would do the trick?

" Skin - like honey…But his mouth…you know, …so, so stupid…but..like honey.."

Kate's head is hanging like a broken flower on her lethargic neck. As if it is too heavy a burden to carry. Her monophonic non-stop babble is undistinguishable. Wet, dark stripes of hair falling forwards in her nearly opalescent face. She resembles a mental patient or something that would dive up from a dark lake in a horror movie. Probably would be covered in sea-grass and have opaque milky eyes too. Juliet suddenly wants to get out and crawl back to her bed, back to James. Feeling uncomfortable now with the words that spill from Kate's spaced-out mouth. She turns off the shower and throws a large towel around Kate's slumping shoulders, rubs her dry briskly, like one takes care of a child.

" Night – on the porch….his stubble ….on my ear. His lips… I shouldn't…but he smells – so good….his lips."

Juliet freezes. Her grasp firmly on Kate's shoulders, trying to keep her from keeling over. _Is it..._? Who is she talking about?

_Stubble and skin like honey, lips on her ear. _

The nausea overcomes her suddenly. Icy cold octopus gropes around her stomach with all eight tentacles and squeezes it. _No, no. _She knows the other woman is still not over him. She has seen her. Every night. Juliet watches her touchingly naïve wake, hidden behind the curtains. The sympathy it awakens in her, confounds her. But she recognizes something. _She has been that woman_. And she can't help commiserating with Kate's wretched desolation. Maybe it is pity or maybe it is her own embarrassing, secret belief in karma. That what she did will come back to haunt her. That and an uncomfortable feeling of having something borrowed, just for loans. Not truly hers.

Is this about him? _"His lips"? _The drinking herself senseless? Numbing the longing?

A small fragment of suspicion that seems to grow and expand with every second ticking forward. He had said he'd go and have a few beers with Horace. They had something to discuss. He had said she shouldn't wait up. That he wouldn't be too late. But then he never came. The lights and the gapping open door visible from her window drove her over the lawn. _Oh James_.

" Said he'd come. I waited so long… waited.."

The words send a blistering cold cascade of pain that floods her entire chest instantly. Kate's head lolls like a ragdoll. Eyes half open but not seeing her. _She doesn't know what she's saying. Just the alcohol talking._

"He is,… his lips… But he didn't come….Beautiful. Said he would… waited... and waited…

Juliet feels unable to breathe properly. She must get away. Away from her.

She had trusted him. For all her fears and her discomfort at having Kate here living so near, a constant reminder, she had trust in him and in what they had together. Not in a million years, had she seriously though he might want to jeopardize that. Or so she had told herself. Over and over again. She realizes that deep down this is exactly what she has been expecting since the moment she heard of their return to the island. The wait and the apprehension more painful than the actual knowing.

She lets her arms fall suddenly and with that the poor miserable woman, the object of all her fears and nagging unease, collapses in pile on the bathroom floor. Blissfully unaware of the pain she has caused.

-----------------------

Her face smashed down against something smoothly gelid and cold. Strangely comfortable position. Doesn't feel like she will ever have the strength to get up. Kate pries open her eyes and gets a good view of the bathroom floor from her froglike perspective. She knows she has been there for quite a while. She can practically feel the tile grout sticking to her skin. She hugs the floor in an attempt to stop it from swaying.

_Ugh._

Sick as a dog. _What happened?_ Sprawled out in the bathroom with a towel barely covering the essentials. Her hair is a humid bird nest. Near her on the light yellowish brown tile is a pile of overalls with the unmistakable smell of vomit. How did she go from taking a small swig of her nightcap to total oblivion? Images and sounds swivel by in her restless brain making her both groggy and nauseous. The only face distinguishable; _Juliet's._

When she opens her eyes the next time she remembers. Miles.

_Bastard - he never came. _

She had waited and waited and waited. And he never showed. _The arrogant prick_. She has a vague and fleeting sense that something else has happened. Something terrible. She truly is her father's daughter. The thought makes her want to cry.

-------------------------------------------

Late afternoon, the sun is a low orange ablaze against the sea. She sits like a lumpy sack of potatoes, slouched against a rough wooden pole at the dock, awaiting the Pala ferry over to Hydra Island. Her overalls are crumpled but clean and her hair is scraped back in a slipshod ponytail. She dangles her legs haphazardly as if she didn't have a care in the world. Perhaps she doesn't anymore. She can't quite believe it. It all happened very fast.

_Banished._

Watching the sun's last rays play catch across the indigo colored waves of the ocean.

She is still suffering the consequences of the previous night. She isn't normally a heavy drinker. A beer or two usually suffices. She doesn't quite know what made her loose her grip so completely. _Yes you do. _

_He never came_.

Her head pounds and her belly churns. She hasn't been able to eat all day. Spent the entire afternoon trying to avoid everyone. _His arrogant face - in particular._ Bastard. Bet he is laughing his ass off now. Typical of him and his childish head games. She isn't surprised though. She has seen his wicked streak and the small core of cold-heartedness within him. And she isn't surprised. She feels curiously subdued and deeply ashamed. But what is worse. She doesn't know why. Last night is mostly a pitch-black hole.

She must have done something really bad though. Of this she is sure. Bad enough for Juliet to want to fire her useless mechanic's ass. Though Goodspeed hadn't exactly said that. He had told her in that gentle, mellow hippy-go-go-lucky tone he's got, that she seemed badly suited for the motor pool and maybe she'd be happier with something more manual. More manual than spanners and screwdrivers?

_Haha. One way ticket to polar bear poop shoveling. Yay, way to go Kate! And her mother that had said she'd never amount to anything. _

She closes her eyes momentarily. She has to smile at the total insane shamble that is her life but she feels the tears burn behind the eyelids all the same. Not able to explain, even to herself, the sudden melancholy. She is a bit relieved too, to put some distance between herself and the perfect golden couple and their perfect little golden life. To have her obsessive nightly porch vigil cut short. Unable to let go of that one last little atom-sized grain of hope.

Miles. The grumpy, miserable son of a bitch. She won't miss him one single bit. Good riddance to that smug bastard. Just a snag in the big scheme of things.

_Maybe just as well. Might take care of this irritating little crush once and for all._

She'd agreed to a date at the off chance that he'd have at least an infinitesimal interest in her. That he'd like her just a fraction beyond just the teasing and harassing her. He had actually seemed bizarrely pleased. What on earth was all that about? The uncharacteristic skipping? Had she imagined it?

_Then, the just not showing up at all. _

The getting stood up by Miles, mortifying and frankly - quite puzzling. She had sat there on her sofa. She hadn't bothered to change from her work clothes for the exact reason that she had also ended up in a slam-dunk drunk stupor. She had had the nagging suspicion that he'd treat their date as a joke. She didn't want to play the fool. Like she had tried too hard…or rather, made an effort at all. She knew that he'd hone in on her weakness and find a way to hurt her, use it against her. Miles and his bottomless well of painfully accurate sarcastic remarks.

As her wait turned into hours, she took a small slug from her unopened Dharma issue vodka. Damn rotgut. It had taken her down faster than she had been able to realize. She had waited and waited and fallen further and further down into the bottle until she passed out completely.

The tar smelling wooden boards creak as someone comes walking with a heavy rhythmical thump-thump-thump. She looks up shielding her eyes from the sharply horizontal afternoon sun as a giant shadow falls over her.

" You too huh? On the Pala express! Dude, what did you do?!"

Hugo releases his entire bodyweight like a boulder on the pier. She fears the wood will yield and let him fall through but amazingly it stays put amid alarming creaking and whining. She is forced to smile. Because it's him. And he looks so equally fucked-up and dismayed. A comrade in screw-ups and probably a similarly unwilling emigrant off the island.

" I don't quite know Hugo. But it must have been something pretty bad is my guess since they're shipping me off to Gitmo."

He chuckles sadly at this and shrugs his big padded shoulders in resignation.

" I guess so…"

"How about you? Did your special garlic mayo give Radzinsky the runs?" Accompanied by a cheesy winks and a sympathetic nudges in his vast midriff with her elbow. She feels her spirit lift at the thought of going there with him. Not all alone.

" Yep. They decided I was up for a promotion. It was either that or a Michelin star."

" What like, Sous Chef for the polar bears? "

" Yeah, something like that. And I cook a mean fish biscuit. Just you wait!"

" Looking forward to that Hugo".

She giggles at the image and feels a warmth settling at the pit of her stomach. They grow quiet as they watch the approaching ferry. Dusk is taking over. She turns her head to look at him and he meets her glance with a sad little half smile. Beautiful chocolate sauce eyes, humid with repressed emotion.

" They found out." he says. Voice on the brink of disintegrating. " I really care for her you know. And he doesn't. Not like I do."

It comes out hotly. The anger and hurt barely concealed.

" Who, Hugo?" Kate is bewildered.

What's he on about? Her who? She must have missed something completely. How little they know about each other. He leans closer to her, his fuzzy red cheek almost brushing hers. Her hand reflexively covers her breath. Bet she still smells like an old wino soaked sewers.

" Lara." His eyes searches her for a reaction and when he finds her staring back blankly with the intelligence of a mildly evolved goldfish he adds:

" Lara Chang".

He turns scarlet, squirms like a schoolboy and his long eyelashes flutter modestly. She bestows him with an indulgent wide-toothed snicker. Feeling kindred and connected.

" Hugo, you big bad seducer you!" she squeals in a mock admonishing tone. She starts humming the lyrics of _" Me and Mrs. Jones". _Can't help it. It is just too good to be true.

Hugo is not even mildly amused. His grim face cuts Kate's jamming session prematurely short and the song ebbs out in nothingness.

"Seriously Hugo – how did that happen?" she asks finally.

He pokes a large finger in his own chest repeatedly and looks at her in utter seriousness, not reciprocating her humoring of him. His ego bruised like a peach dropped on a slab of stone. She instantly feels bad for him. Guilty for the teasing. It's obviously a very big deal to him.

" You mean, how could a hot chick like Lara fall for a big lump of butter like me? Huh? That's what you're thinking?! Isn't it?"

" No Hugo, that's not what I meant. Honest, cross my fingers, " she says in an attempt to pacify him.

An attempt to mellow down the flow of hurt that comes with the slightest jab at that thin useless shell that is Hugo's sole protection against the world. And she thinks of her own improbable, unmentionable embarrassing crush. If she can be so idiotically infatuated with the grouchy, prickly creature that is Miles Straume, then why the hell not would Mrs. Chang fall for Hugo's warmth and immense kindness? She'd barter her feelings for the freakish ghost hunter in a second in exchange for absolutely nothing. In fact; she'd _pay_ someone a considerate fortune (if she'd had one) to take this idiotic crush the hell off her.

" Kung-Pao chicken. She was teaching me a new recipe." He sighs. " Great cook, Lara! She sure has a way with chicken."

" I bet. You're a bit of spring chicken yourself." She dares to take another little stab at mockery. He grins at this. Secretly proud to have bagged a hottie like Mrs. Chang.

"Hey, looks like our ride is here." She gives his chipmunk cheek a quick little friendly pat.

" Let's go princess. We have a cruise to get to."

" Yeah lets. Lets get out of here Dustin."

" Oh, oh and who knows we might be able to hook up with some cute polar bears when we get there. "

" Ha, definitely a wiser option than the beasts available here!"

Hugo lumbers up in a standing position and his whole face lights up, He stretches out his hand for her to take. She grasps it as if it where a lifeline. And perhaps it is.


	7. Common sense

_Thanks for the sweet reviews. Ain't nothing better…. _

_**The morning after. The traffic is fierce at Villa Miles and company. Some unexpected guests invites themselves in. - The plot thickens.**_

--------------------------------

**Common sense**

_Common sense._ If he'd have any - he wouldn't have been here in the first place. Stuck in the 70's with a bunch of yapping crackpots and hardliner hippies.

It's the morning after the whole monumental dating fiasco. He awakens, looking like a bludgeoned filet mignon and feels like one too. He reluctantly drags his feet. Not looking forward to the questions he is certain he will be bombarded with. Much rather stay in bed, where the vision of Kate's freckled little boobs might appear at least in the apparition of a wet dream. _Oh, fat chance_. All he can think of is Hugo bonking his mom. May he be damned to hell and eternal damnation and all that crap.

When he comes out for breakfast his under-stimulated housemates are lined up like two eager circus seals and they literally pounce on him when he edges his door open. The urge to slam it shut is overwhelming.

" How did it go!?". In unison from the sofa where both men are precariously balancing cereal bowls on their knees. Asses at the edge of their seats. Bright shiny eyes. Like living with the damn Thompson twins.

Dan's mouth falls open as he sees the awful rainbow coloured manifestation that is Miles this fine morning. The flaky whiz kid is effectively shocked out of words. Jin is as expressionless as always. _Or –wait a moment - is that a barely detectable little malevolent smile forming at the edge of his mouth?_

"You have - boo-boos." Jin declares with his gratingly toneless voice.

" For the fecking king's English sake. The English Jin, it is atrocious! You gotta' stop letting Jules tutor you!"

_Ha – excellent deflection_. _Shut him up – didn't it?_

" But what happened to your face?"

Oh fuck it. He has a soft spot for Daniel and all but really, how much should he be expected to take?

"Buzz off Dan, or I'll make it happen to yours!" Barbed voice like a gruff old warthog.

They watch him quietly like two little intelligent and curious animals trying to decide whether he is palatable enough to chase down. He really can't deal with their jarring, itchy interference right now.

He's got more important things on his mind than the botched date or daydreaming about Kate's little pale mangoes. _Um-mm_. Fleetingly distracted by the brief ephemeral image. Miles shows them his back and makes his surly way towards the kitchen counter. He is just about to open the dry storage when a head peeps out from behind one of the kitchen cupboards.

_Alrightey then_. Just what was missing! Crap, crap, crap_._ As useful as a third nipple - the crack-head doctor in his janitor drabs. Jack's slack-jawed mug for breakfast. Not exactly a sight for sore eyes. That damned demented destiny's child.

_And what the heck is he doing here?_

" Oh, wow Miles, you might want me to have a look at that. Doesn't look good."

" You lay one soft metrosexual hand on me you quack - you'll regret it."

Miles reaches for a clean spoon from the kitchen drawer, which he subsequently slams shut in order to put weight behind his words. _Shoo, shoo daisy-boy._ Definitely don't need him here now.

" I _am_ a doctor you know! People travel from all over the world to have me treat them." Jack huffs, managing to pull off looking both pompous and coquettish at the same time. Well, perhaps not a big feat considering the size of that man's delusional ego.

" Oh shut it. Don't you have a loo or something that needs fixing?"

Jack mumbles, voice is barely audible over the crickly-sparkle sound of his own cereals as he pours some milk on top of them:

" World renowned spinal surgeon, I'll have you know…"

Miles slumps down on the lazy chair opposite his expectant ogling roomies. Practically drooling. Daniel, round-eyed and his forehead perfunctory draped in his usual show of concern. His loafer clad toes pointing inwards in anxiety like a peahen. His skin super-glued in symmetrical folds to his forehead.

_Hmm, lucid or cookoo today?_

" Violent woman - yes? This Kate? " Dan's highbrowed head leans to the left as he studies Miles face.

" Yes, yes!" Jin confirms flatly, nodding eagerly. Yes, I remember she also used to hit her other boyfriends."

" Not me!" Jack negates visibly perking up from his seat by the kitchen counter. Keeping a safe distance from the proletariat. Miles doesn't even look up. More important things to do today than puncturing the doc's balloon, fun as it is.

" It wasn't Kate ok!" Miles shovels in his Coco Crunch sloppily, not even bothering to close his mouth in between scoops in the name of efficiency. He better get out of here. _It is far too early for the freakin' Spanish inquisition._

_-----------------------------------_

There is a brief funky knock on the door as it swings open revealing a puffy eyed and gratifyingly pasty-faced LaFleure. _Why the heck bother knocking at all?_

" So what are the riff-raff up too this early in the morning?" he asks with pretended jolliness. Swallowing up the whole room with his large annoying persona. Suddenly making everyone else seem insignificant. Miles hasn't forgiven him for beating him blue and yellow. Not likely to either.

Head of Security has a toothbrush and a thick leather bound novel in his hands, a pillow squashed under his arm and a pair of security overalls thrown over his shoulder. He doesn't look like he has slept much. His mop of dirty blond hair ruffled and uncharacteristically dirty. He drops his loot on the floor by the door without further delay.

" You moving in?" Miles ignores his question.

LaFleure shuffles his feet slightly and his eyes waver, effectively and studiously avoiding any eye contact.

" Thought I'd bunk with you guys. Juliet, eh, Juliet is having some alone time."

Miles drops his empty bowl. _Alone time my ass!_ Those two are like fucking Siamese twins – aggravatingly attached to the hip. And the big obnoxious La F. here in his house? _Don't think so._

" No offence but: u-uh. Nope. Not gonna' happen!"

LaFleure completely ignores him and makes himself comfortable between Jin and Daniel on the sofa. They look disgustingly happy, star crossed like two little groupies in the vicinity of him. _Oh, for fucks sake! _Miles is just about to take up arms when LaFleure darn quivering eyebrows distracts him flightily.

" Miles, I think I have a little solution to our little 'p-r-o-b-l-e-m'" LaFleure fixes on him pointedly. Yep. It is useless to fight it. Let the goon move in, for all that it matters, it is impossible to make things any worse in the freakin' circus ring that currently is his life.

He hasn't time for a single additional thought before the next, more timid knock is audible at their door.

" Come in for fucks sake!" LaFleure hollers, already appearing chillingly at home in their house. Miles shudder at the thought of him making his presence permanent here. Must get him back with Juliet. _This is not on._

" The more the merrier!" he grumbles as a meek and distraught face peeks through the slight opening in the door.

" May I come in?"

Miles sink his face into the palms of his hands. It _is_ like fucking Piccadilly Circus here. The whole flipping Dharma Initiative in its entity has decided to show up for breakfast. It's the goddam' Dharma edition of the Breakfast Club. So yes, why not have his prickhead of a dad join the ranks.

A polite and perfectly composed Dr. Chang, in his customary perfectly ironed white coat and a paper folder in hand steps in. The only visible giveaway to his mental state, the bright white knuckles on his hands as he clamps the folder to his chest.

"Mr. LaFleure. I need a word with you. In private." He nods his head towards the door dryly and LaFleure gets up with a heavy uncooperative sigh. They disappear out on the porch. The remaining breakfast guests are still able to observe them through the front window. First row performance. Without the sound of course but the scene is still painfully apparent. An obviously distressed Dr. Chang's wildly gesticulating and LaFleure trying to calm him down.

The whole house collectively lets out a loud gasp in touching unity as LaFleure embraces Dr. Changs' visibly agitated body with both arms. He tucks him in closely in a snug bear-hug. Dr. Chang's shoulder shiver in LaFleure's comforting grasp and they can't draw any other conclusion than that the scientist is bawling his eyes out.

Suddenly they enter the room. Dr. Chang 's eyes red-rimmed and LaFleure's arm in a steady fatherly grip around his shoulders. Patting his lab-coat in a feeble "there, there" attempt. Jin and Dan scramble to make space on the shoddy sofa in between them and both LaFleure and Dr. Chang squeezes down forming a tight unlikely quartet. An absolute aberration.

_What a fucking farce. _

Probably misplaced some important research file. _Ha._ LaFleure looks like the evil twin brother of Dr. Phil. Dan and Jin, both likely under the delusion that they are the guest of the Jerry Springer show, lean forward in a perfectly synchronized effort at patting the anguished scientist on his impeccably white clad shoulders.

" It isn't the first time", sniffles the distraught professor. Even Jack draws closer at this happily unexpected opportunity at some well needed diversion. He sits himself down on the arm of Miles' chair. Miles glares at him in an effort to repel him the hell off it but Jack doesn't even notice. He is seemingly mesmerized by the highly unusual sight of the snivelling, snot-faced scientist. _Perhaps it's not that bad being a janitor after all. Less responsibility, less stress and all that. _

" Lara," Dr. Chang begins on as he searches the faces around him for some sympathy. He is encouraged to continue as he finds it in abundance. " I suspect she is up to her old tricks. Remember Barbara, Jim?"

He turns to face LaFleure, and ends up nose to nose with him due to their extreme proximity. LaFleure nods dumbly. Nose almost caressing nose with the movement. Dr. Chang turns back to his captive audience. The air literally vibrates in trembling expectancy.

" Barbara used to work here att the canteen." He drops the bomb coolly, almost collected again." They had an affair."

_Bull!_

Miles' nails mauls their way into the stuffing of armchair. How dares he! About his own wife! He feels the fillings crunching in the teeth as his jaws grinds down in red-hot blinding anger. A heroic attempt at controlling his temper.

_The doochbag!_

All eyes still on Dr. Chang. No one notices Miles clawing the stuffing out of the chair with his incensed fingers while dreaming of doing the same to that creep's intestines.

" Well, she always was a wild one Lara. I knew that when we got married. But I honestly thought it was behind us. After the baby and all. And, now… I have understood that there is someone new."

They all oh and ah in sympathy. Except Miles. He picks on, slowly mutilating the sofa-chair's innards. Disembowelling the poor inanimate object. Trying to keep himself from ripping the fricking guts from the bastard's laboratory coat covered belly.

" Who is it? Do you know?" Jack leans forward, all ears and spiteful little smug fake compassionate smile. He is having a swell old time. This has considerably better entertainment value than scrubbing out the communal toilets.

" I don't know exactly. But I know that it started after the new recruits arrived. My guess is on…."

Absolute silence in apprehension – all breathing activity stops momentarily. It is unbearable. You can hear the termites crawling in the walls. Who, who, who? Oh, crap. _He knows about Hugo. _LaFleure's eyes meet his own in alarm. He lips are drawn back in sheer tension showing off his teeth in a panicky grin as they wait for the inevitable. _Spit it out for god's sake! Get on with it._

" Well based on Lara's previous indiscretions, my money is on that skinny new brunette girl at the carpool. A bit of a tomboy…..Katey or Kitty or whatever her name is."

_Phew. _

_Exhale. _

_Breathe. _

_....…Oh shit._

----------------------------------


	8. Pussyfooting

Thanks for the sweet reviews! This chapter is….well I don't really know what to say about it apart from the fact that it involves a whole lot of people sneaking around in the Dharma darkness and a plan that backfires miserably.

**Pussyfooting**

* * *

"Things get worse under pressure. "

_Murphy's Law of Thermodynamics_

* * *

It takes a leap of faith of massive proportions – to entrust the whole Chang, Kate and Hugo chabunkle in LaFleur's sinister hands.

Just thinking of it is enough to give Miles colic.

But he has no choice. It is late afternoon when he can finally skitter off back home. Drained. He hopes the living situation has been resolved. Hopes Jules has forgiven Jimmy-boy for whatever peccadillos he is (_for sure_) guilty of.

He' been pussyfooting around all day in an effort to avoid the entire nosy, intrusive , meddling population of the Dharma Initiative. Circumnavigating all curious assholes trying to squeeze out ;_"who's the lucky bastard that got to whop your little snarky derrière into a mush?"_. Judging by the size of the big fat grins he is receiving everywhere today he's starting to suspect that he is not exactly Mr. Popular around here.

As he ponders the baffling rationale behind the apparently commonly prevailing anti-Miles sentiments (_and why wouldn't he be loved by all?!_) he reaches forward to pull his door open.

_His heart drops so hard and fast, it actually hits his pelvic bone._

The house is a teeming refugee camp for schizoid bachelors and megalomaniacal janitors. The air is dense with the buzzing and droning of scorned spouses and insane geniuses conspiring and conniving. He slams the cheap paneled front door shut behind him in an effort to piss someone off.

_No one notices._

In their tattered and frayed sofa, Dr. Chang and the household's very own turnip-headed scientist sit huddled together, flipping frantically through Dan's big fat journal of crazy. They gesticulate wildly, talking up a cacophony of delirious baloney, seemingly in total agreement. Figures! All Miles can make out is some crap about electromagnetic, hydrogen-dodadida, and pending disaster-something. His dad is a right freakjob. Behind the sofa, Jack is loitering, completely ignored by all. He butts in incessantly. Something about killing someone and putting everything right again.

_Frigging cuckoo-house._

It's like a bloody snake-nest of cerebral folly. He just wants to put his feet up with a beer and zoom out. Without having to shove an extravaganza of slithering overexcited intellectuals and euphoric professors off his own damn sofa. Jack whining that he _'had her'_ and _'lost her'_ and on and on it goes. _Oh, the level of griping and bellyaching! _His sniveling gibberish, enough to cause a septic ulcer in anyone stupid enough to listen.

The only one seemingly unruffled by all the _brouhaha_ is Jin, who is casually leaning over the kitchen counter shoving in a big steaming bowl of noodles or what not. Not bothering to close his mouth in between the scoops in the name of efficiency one might assume. He winks at Miles, somewhat inappropriately, vulgar even.

This is when LaFleur pokes his nose through a narrow crack of the door, all keyed up and manically chipper, waving excitedly for Miles to step out. The moment he raises his left foot over the threshold LaFleur seizes the fabric of his jumpsuit-shoulder and literally yanks him out. Seemingly unable to wait another microsecond. He boots the door shut behind them.

* * *

" All sorted!" he reports. Self-content beyond reason. Still holding on to Miles' jumpsuit for dear life. Miles pulls angrily at the fabric around his arm in an attempt to untwist it. He actually has to personally unclench LaFleur's fingers one by one to make him release his rigid grip.

LaFleur leans back on the door, one knee pulled up, boot resting behind him on the door, the perfect illustration of arrogance. He gifts Miles with his usual snooty superior-looking smirk, sneaking one hand in between the buttons of his own shirt as if he is frigging Napoleon. Absentmindedly picking his molar teeth with his other hand and studying whatever he finds in there with deep interest. _No rush at all._ La Fleur has been brewing on it all morning and is seemingly getting a serious kick out of letting Miles stew.

Miles is too high-strung and antsy for this. He has zero tolerance or interest in indulging in the theatrical self-congratulatory bullshit he knows the Southerner has a penchant for.

"Come out with it already! Lets hear your big fantabolous crackerjack plan."

" Keep yer goddam' knickers on tiddlywinks!" LaFleur snubs, eliciting the urge in Miles to stamp his feet like a sullen five year old doing the polka. He represses the impulse, clinching his fists to his side and digging his boots into the floorboards instead. _Fuck._

_The hoity-toity arsehole._

" Spill already!!!!"

"Well then my impatient little friend." - _Artful fucking pause for effect._ - " As of this very moment, they are both being reassigned to Hydra. - Courtesy of yours truly!" he exclaims with a boisterous voice that has Miles hushing him like an old schoolmarm. Scared the others will overhear them.

" Shhhh…Keep it down! Wait, what do you mean? - Both?…. "

LaFleur just graces him with an indifferent nod.

" But, but, but…. are you deranged? - You do realize that Dr. Chang is way off track right!? Completely round-the-bend off the track!"

" Yup. Sure."

_The rotten boor_.

LaFleur is giddily pleased with himself. Bobbing his big fat chowderhead up and down- a sly, cunning grimace gaining ground. Annoying fucking dimples digging canyons across his cheeks. He scratches his chin, nails in stubble creating a sickening sound. Miles cottons on _pronto_. Well, it doesn't take a genius. Just a look at that disgustingly smug grin is enough.

" O-ho-ho. Wait a minute! I see what this is. – How e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y convenient for you!"

LaFleur taps his index finger to his dirty blonde temple, underlining to Miles, the enormity of his genius, the puss-filled cyst of evil that is his twisted mind.

" Yep. Two birds with one stone."

_The self-serving bastard!_

"Absolutely bloody perfect! You get rid of her too – so that Juliet might take you back. Funny, how well this worked out – for YOU!"

" Quit yer pissin' an moanin'! What's it to you anyhow?"

" You heartless bastard." He mutters under breath, his head just about to incinerate.

"Oh yeah - I forgot!" Trilling like a burlesque canary. "You carry a big fucking torch for her – dontcha'?!" Caught out. _Shit, LaFleur will go bananas and back with this._

" Mind your own beeswax!" Miles snips, tips of his ear growing hot like on a little teenybopper. What the f-! He frantically tries to think of a way to salvage the remaining pathetic scraps of his dignity.

" O-o-ooo, touchy!" LaFleur poo-poohs him with his evil little smart-ass laugh and Miles is just about to launch into an ad hoc assassination attempt when he suddenly realizes something. There's no way he can win this. And wait a moment…..EEEEK. S-t-o-p.

If there is even the slightest chance Jules will have him back…it means he is moving out of the house. Yeah…

_Hmmm._

W-h-y in Pete's mottled name is he fighting this?!

_Oh fuck it! - Fuck Kate._

Let her go down with the big fucking Hydra boat. – See if he cares….

* * *

_He should feel nothing but relief._

He should be frickin' over the moon! His little family-unit saved for the time being. His mom effectively barred from engaging in any further infidelity with her red-blooded Babar. No sick perverted potentially incoming stepdads ( or stepmoms) for little baby Miles - as far as the eye can see. Yeah, he should jubilant. He should be throwing a huge fucking parade to celebrate Hugo's chunky salacious ass being successfully purged from committing further smuttiness in Dharmaville.

_Should be. Ought to be. _

_But isn't._

He gravitates towards the dock. Seemingly on autopilot. Sneaking behind the houses, sticking to the camouflage of the shadows. He cringes at his own fluffy pubescent hope. _How sick is this?_ Hoping to catch a glimpse of her – just one last little peek. His heart flutters at the thought of her. _What the heck is wrong with him?_ He imagines her feeling pretty low. Her ex' banishing her off the island and all. No one there who cares enough to stand up for her. _Yeah, - as if he did?_

_Just want to see her._

He gets there just in time, crouching down, protected by the obscurity of the tree line. There. _There she is_. Hair looking like it was styled with chewing-gum. Scraped back and knotted in a sprouting pony-tail. She isn't alone, of course. He sees her walking hand in hand with Hugo, approaching the ferry just about to dock at the quay, their shoulders touching with every other step.

_Crap._

_What the hell is he doing here?_

The only thing plain and clear - is that she _rocks_ that rumpled-assed jumpsuit as she gently sways down the pier. He sees her swipe away a wayward wisp of hair, obviously laughing at something Hugo has said. Must be fucking hilarious by the way she's cracking up. He watches the goofy contour of her as she walks, the cocky movement of her narrow hips as she jokingly bumps into Hugo. He feels absurdly envious of Hugo.

_Better off without her._

Damn lucky – it never came to anything. She's a total screwball.

_Just a chick._

His chest pounds as if he has a blacksmith trying to hammer his way out. He wants to run down the pier like some poof in some lame-ass movie - shouting her name. Asking her to stay. Wants to…. Wants to…

_Fuck. What is wrong with him? _

It is freakin' warped_. _He knows that it is. But he can't help feeling somewhat crushed that she doesn't turn to look at him.

* * *

He watches the ferry depart. The thought of going back home to the jibber-jabber of the rest of the looney-toons is less than appealing. Plus, he is pissed – yeah, pissed as hell at LaFleur for sending away the only measly entertainment available in this hellhole. He turns to make his way out through the dense vegetation. It has grown considerably darker by now. He can't really see where he puts his feet.

"Hmf!"

Forehead against forehead. Crashing head to head with someone. He stumbles backwards, plunking down right smack on his rump. Hits his tailbone on something hard. A searing pain that rises up his spine. _What the.....!?_

" Damn!" He clambers up rubbing both his forehead and his butt. He squints, trying to make out who the obviously female creature in front of him is. As his eyes adjust to the faint illumination from a nearby streetlight, he recognizes her.

" Juliet, what are you doing here?"

"I might ask you the same thing!" Scrunching up her eyes as she studies him in the sparse light. She gasps and her left hand flies up to cover her donut-shaped shaped mouth. A somewhat gratifying response considering the less than compassionate reactions he has drawn from the rest of the Dharma populace. She clasps his chin between her long fingers, frankly a bit rough-handedly, tugging it closer. He cringes like a little boy, trying to shake free from her. Shit, he really doesn't want to deal with this now."

" Oh my god, Miles, who did that to you?"

" Ah, this. Oh, nobody…just a little misunderstanding," he mumbles as he finally manages to pull away from her. Not wanting to rat her man out. God knows she can be a scary woman. For male solidarity sake if nothing else, because LaFleur definitely deserves his very own beating – and at the hand of a woman nonetheless.

" How 'bout you? Playing babes in the woods Jules?"

She is a right mess. Her hair in a disarray, leafs and grass straws sticking out like an artfully constructed bird nest. He has never seen her like this before. Puffy, naked face and eyes that avoid his. Hesitant and nervous like a whore in church on Sunday. Bizarrely atypical behavior for her. Normally the queen of steel-enforced ice-bellied coolness . He catches her wrist before she has the opportunity to escape.

" You ok Jules? Something's happened?"

" Frankly Miles. It all sort of sucks. I don't even know where to start," she says shaking her head.

" James been a naughty boy then?" Badly put-on British accent to lighten up the atmosphere. Like he imagines Prince Charles would speak to Camilla. Doesn't know why, but he always gets the feeling he is in the presence of royalty with Jules.

Deep furrows on her usually perfectly composed forehead She snatches her arm back and fidgets with her hair like a hyperactive schoolgirl. Twisting strands of hair in her fingers into an unlikely rastafari do. It's exhausting to watch. But he knows she wants to talk.

" Yes, I guess you can say that." She sighs and it seems like she is struggling to keep the waterworks from starting up.

" You gonna' talk or are we gonna' do this yadayada for the rest of the night?"

Miles is impatient but he honestly wants to know. It freaks him out seeing her like this. Emotions bared. Vulnerable and exposed. Stiff upper lip crumbling in front of his very eyes. She shrugs and then she begins telling him.

_And it is truly hair-raising._

* * *

He skulks off in the murkiness of the evening, mooching stealthily between the houses. Shoulders tensed up at the level of his earlobes, hands clenched into rock-hard little clams in his jumpsuit pocket.

LaFleur.

_That flaming arsehole!._

Jules usually composed restraint blown to smithereens and frankly he, himself is having trouble digesting what has been recounted. Making sense of the senseless.

Some crap about '_skin like honey and lips and ears and stubble'_ and god knows what other cloying hogwash. And this specific string of abstract nonsense has led Juliet to the firm conviction that James is up to some kind of extracurricular caboodling.

_With Kate._

A suspicion that is standing firm since Juliet, hidden in her very own patch of vegetation and probably right next to Miles, has witnessed Kate being booted off the island. Why get rid of her if there is nothing to it?

He doesn't breathe a word about his quick stopover at casa della'Kate last night or about the true culprit behind his bunged-up face. A screeching warning system – his innate bullshit alarm- has been triggered somewhere in the clutter of his brain.

_Don't say anything._

Something - a creeping hunch that Juliet is not way off. An undeniable fishy stench wafting by and settling on the evening as he reconsiders it in light of Juliet's story. Something about LaFleur's excessive manhandling of him, by far exceeding the norm stipulated for a nice neighbor defending a drunken girl. The slight glint of jealousy spotted in the other's eyes, and certainly felt in the rage of the other man's fists. Something shady indeed about the eagerness with which he had had her tossed off the island. And the getting caught bare-handedly fondling Kate's unclothed , albeit spew covered, boobs.

_Not entirely kosher._

Miles almost smiles. How LaFleur's whole plan of doing away with Kate has backfired in the most spectacular way. Instead of being welcomed home again he has actually provided Juliet with additional fodder to kindle her suspicions with.

But then again, the giggle dies quickly when he considers what this actually means.

_Had they agreed to meet?_

Had she told LaFleur to come over since Miles hadn't shown up as agreed? Or was it all planned – that he'd come along after Miles? And the insane booze binging. Was that about LaFleur? What the hell was up with setting up a date with him at all. Some clever plan to drive LaFleur into jealous frenzy?

The thoughts flitter around like angry flies in his head. Back and forward, up and down. He can't get a grip on it. He doesn't get it. He must have missed the mark by a mile. He'd seriously thought he had seen something there. They way she'd looked at him.

_Big fat mistake._

_Shit. _

That whole infernal salmagundi of Jack, LaFleur and Kate - it had been the exact reason he had decided to stay the hell away from her in the first place. He can't quite believe he even considered it. That he actually almost went there. Let himself be drawn in. It is so fucked up.

_And you my boy - you are so screwed._

Well at the very least, Jack is out of the picture Miles thinks while realizing that the muted _shuff-shuff-shuff_ that he hears are the soft sound of rubber soles on grass quickly approaching. A hand sneaks up on his shoulder. He jumps a mile up even though he had sort of expected it. _For the love of Mike! - If everyone could just keep their hands to themselves!_

" Wait up Miles! Have you seen Kate? I've been looking for her all over. All day. "

The doc is a disheveled mess. Eyes shifty and elusive – eerily reminiscent of Jules – the male version. He wheezes heavily as if he's been running the marathon across the manicured Dharma lawns.

" Just left." He nips the sentence in the middle indicating the direction of the dock with his thumb. Busy trying to shake Jacks effeminate surgeon hand without appearing too obvious. _He can't stand the doc up in his face._ He needs to think. The shrieking, overcrowded merry-go-round in his head needs to stop.

" Just left?" Jack's breath on him has him recoiling as if scalded. Man, apparently not much for toothpaste.

" The pier, she just left." Intentionally vague- he certainly doesn't want Jack swimming the channel to Hydra. In fact, he realizes that whatever is going on between LaFleur and Kate, he doesn't want this raving nutcase anywhere near her.

Their little quaint triangle drama is starting to look pretty cute when considering the diabolical pentagon of love imbroglio that is beginning to materialize. He does a quick calculation in his head. Maybe more like a heptagon or octagon or what the hell you would call this scattering, sharp-edged, massive heap of crap of which Kate seems the natural apex. The midpoint of all things erratic and psychotic. An oblivious magnet for intrigues and kooky pining lovesick shit.

Jack looks absolutely floored. His weak chin hangs down on his chest. He seems even more miserably screwed-up than normally. Voice rotating upwards in an increasing falsetto with every syllable:

" She left? Where? She can't have? We belong together!"

Candy-assed cretin! Miles forces himself to give him a too hard pseudo-friendly slap on his back, enough to make the air huff out of the doc. With this and takes off in a hurried stride while throwing backwards:

" Sorry buddy – she left the island. Gotta' go!

_Wonder's how he got through med school?_ He's dumber than a hardboiled egg. He can't walk fast enough – got to shake that mucked-up pretentious muttonhead. Chivvy-on.

_Pfft!!!_

_Belong together, my ass!_

_Like cyanide and whipped cream._

* * *

_**Thanks for reading. Hope you liked it – I have the next chapter ready and raring to go…..almost.**_


	9. Lovers and scumbags

So, while writing this I may have unwittingly driven our starcrossed lovers (hehe) further and further apart. I might even have painted myself into a corner. But just noticed a few millimeters of bare floorboards here. Must paint some more…..

Lovers and scumbags

* * *

"If a series of events can go wrong, they will do so in the worst possible sequence."

_Murphy's extended law._

* * *

It is already late when they arrive. They tread warily along the narrow pier, in total silence. The easygoing cheerfulness left behind as they take in their new home. The air feels different here; clammy and impossibly humid. Inhaling is like drowning a little, pulling in mouthful after mouthful of syrupy liquid. Even the cicadas seem to suffer in the stifling night. The critters rustle up a racket, louder than a gang of bragging soccer moms. A hysterical welcoming committee.

It is also the only welcome awaiting them. The brusque reception by the diminutive runt-sized Mr. Ceccherini, head caretaker of the Hydra station hardly qualifies. He has been blessed with a vinegary sour disposition and a posture that can only be explained by having a giant broom permanently lodged up his peevish arse. A little well-spruced Errol Flynn moustache accentuates the abnormal smallness of his petulant O-shaped mouth. His thin peculiar lips move as if constrained by a drawstring rubber band causing his little jaunty moustache to flex like a caterpillar as he doses out his tart introduction.

_Three seconds._

Three seconds is the time it takes for Kate to reach a point where she yearns to pull out his sick little hirsute mishap with a pair of rusty pliers.

_Given half a chance - she would._

Hugo is disquietingly subdued. He looks straight ahead, his large back bent in defeat.

The pint-sized weasel hands him the keys and leaves them standing there, outside a big barn-like building with its utilitarian corrugated aluminium roofing. It's a far cry from their cheesy little houses back at Dharmaville. No fake suburban gardens and swings here. _No Stepford wife either, _Kate thinks with a certain satisfaction.

" So, okidook…ehem.. " Hugo exclaims, rocking back and forward on the balls of his feet. " This is, um… I don't know what…"

"It isn't exactly Club Med." Kate adds but in all honesty, she doesn't mind all that much. She sort of remembers the premises but then again, those days in captivity were all in a blur. This will be better than the bear cages at any rate. And it is a relief to be away. From them, Barbie and Ken, and from him. From Miles – the snide little narcissist.

" No it sure isn't – more like the funny-farm," he states a little hesitantly as he chews his bottom lip. The type of facility that he himself is intimately familiar with.

" Come on, lets check it out Hugo!"

She snatches hold of his sleeve and pulls him in through the large double doors of the barrack they've been assigned to. Hugo checks the numbers on their keys. They are attached to gigantic tacky plastic key-chains with the ornate Hydra logo stamped on one side and the number on another. Three and seven.

"Dings for dig number seven!" says Hugo throwing her the other key.

She catches it with a high-handed leftie and proceeds towards her door. The doors wouldn't look amiss in a high security prison. Heavy and coated with sheets of metal and equipped with small peepholes. _For looking in or out?_ The key chain clinks against the metal as she turns the key in the look.

" Mmm-hum, cosy!" Kate surveys the little cell-like room that is her new living quarters. "Very bunkerish, very last days of Berlin."

One small narrow rectangular window positioned high enough to let in some light but too high to be able to see out. Like a cellar. She turns to grin at him. She forces herself to make it one hell of a smile. Hugo looks completely forlorn. His whole face droops like a Dali painting, melting in the sweltering evening air. It scares her more than anything. He leans over her shoulder in a quick inspection.

" Oh man… Cosy like a death-row dungeon." He grows pale. All the blood abandoning his face in an instant. The room is eerily reminiscent of something else. Santa Rosa. _Yep._ He isn't sure he will get any sleep here.

" Look, look! We will be snug as a bugs here!"

Kate throws herself on the narrow cot attached to the wall. _Ouch. As soft and bouncy as concrete_. The leap effectively punches all the air out of her. She is trying too hard, she knows. Overdoing it. It is just that, she can't stand how absolutely pathetic and despondent Hugo looks as he stands there.

"Yeah, yeah. Just swell…" He looks anxiously around." Hey, what do you think this place really is? There doesn't seem to be many folks around at all."

" Nah, Horace told me there are just the scientists and the two other manual workers at the station. Don't worry Hugo! Trust me, this accommodation by far outshines my previous experiences of the hospitality here, delightful as they were. Oh, and the company too!"

Hugo's cheeks turn a peachy pink, pleased with the offhanded compliment. He waves at her a bit awkwardly and trundles off down the corridor towards number seven.

Sometime during the night she hears him entering her room. The gentle shuffle of his large body as he lowers it on the floor next to her. She is hardly awake to register it at all but when she wakes at the crack of dawn she finds him snoring on the rough

concrete floor on just a sheet, hugging his pillow as if it were his one true love.

* * *

The morning fog lies thick as soup over the yard outside their barrack. It is still extremely humid, and they both find their hair reaching equally alarming heights of spiralling frizzyness. Nearly narcoleptic as they stand swaying and yawning, rubbing their eye sockets free of sleep. Slouching in attention like good new recruits while Barbara, the other Hydra worker, their new colleague-slash-overlord, lets them in on the rules of the game at their new home.

She's all menacing angular shapes and bony scrawny legs. She has a face like a sourpuss possum, skin completely monochrome and devoid of colour. Her eyebrows and eyelashes have almost the same light tone as her complexion, making her a little reminiscent of a translucent newborn mouse baby.

_Um - yes – and she has the warmth of a German POW camp director._

Hugo's shoulder sag in utter disappointment as she briskly informs them that she is the one in charge of the cooking and the indoor duties at the Hydra station and that they are to do outdoor menial work, assisting the scientists with their zoological research projects. Hugo's display of disgruntlement is all but discreet behind his hefty hand:

" I bet there'll be raw fish and baby seals on the menu."

Kate's giggling far exceeds what the joke warrants. She knows it is childish but the relief of seeing Hugo perk up is enormous. Barbara torpedoes him down with a single evil albino-glare that would have put a James Bond villain to shame. She hands him a shovel and a bucket and just points them pinch-lipped towards the polar bear cages.

They march merrily along, swinging their buckets. Kate doesn't know why. There is no reason really because Barbara isn't even the remotest bit friendly, but still she finds herself immediately warming to the freaky-looking pallid woman. This, in spite of the thing she has about rodents, and even though Barbara makes it sound like they have arrived to the first circle of hell.

Perhaps not so strange after all. _Just look at the Sawyer thingy_. She obviously has a weakness for the chaffing backbiting type. _Oh and Miles._ There is no reason whatsoever to like that surly, disagreeable bastard either.

_And still - she does._

* * *

Every bone and muscle in her brittle body smarts as Kate finally conks out on her bunk She is hot, exhausted and reeking of sweat and polar bear waste. They've been bossed around like bonded serfs all day long alternating between Ceccherini's shrill whiny orders and Barbara's Gestapo-like commandeering. She hears Hugo's painful groan down the hall as he similarly collapses on top of his cot. The bunk lets out it's own shrieking complaint at the sudden weight demands.

" Draconian rule of Hydra, not something for weaklings huh?" she hollers to him in a attempt at cheering him up. She hears his large feet hobbling along the hallway like a monster truck with a flat tire . A moment later, he appears outside her wide open door, towel thrown across his bent shoulders, moving with the grace and agility of a 95-year old cripple.

"Dude, you said a right word there. Come on, we need some R&R. Grab your towel and lets hit the spa, princess!" he smiles wryly nodding his head sideways.

The showers are at the other end of the same barrack. She shudders, remembering the last time there. A lifetime ago. _The frilly sundress, Ben and his mind games. Sawyer._ She shakes it off. This is now. She is different now and it is different now. The facilities have a locker-room adjacent to it and harsh fluorescent morgue-like lightning. Not fancy, but equipped with clean and warm water if her memory serves her right.

_And it is._

They shower at the opposite sides of the large tiled partition that separates the men's section from the women's.

Kate closes her eyes as the stream hits her face in a soothing cascade. The water enfolds her like a warm embrace. Her muscles ache and she is tired as hell but she feels pretty good. _Safe._ She smiles to herself as she hears Hugo's humming from the other side of the wall suddenly escalating into downright crooning. Roaring out of tune like a bazooka in a string ensemble; horrible, loud and alarmingly happy:

" Me and,…. me and,… Mrs, Mrs Chang, Missus. Chang, Missus CHAAAANG!!"

She joins him while frenetically working up a big foamy hill of soapsuds on the top of her skull.

" We got a thaang going ooooon…"

" We both know that it's wrong!"

" But it's much too strooong!"

Wailing at the top of their lungs until Barbara's mole-like head appears at the entrance of the shower room, Just about visible if they peer across the partial walls. They expect her to bellow like a drill sergeant to zip it. To shriek that the polar bears are getting all worked up and antsy out in their cages as are the seemingly invisible scientists in their office. _But she doesn't_. She just watches from the entrance for a moment with vacant watery eyes.

" Mrs Chang?" she repeats. Her voice suddenly inexplicably muted, creepily sweet even. " You know Lara?"

Hugo stares at her stupidly above the tiled wall. Mouth left slightly agape and bewildered like a large wet tuna-fish. Frozen in a pose with his arm above his head, lathering up his armpit.

"Yeah, and so…?"

Barbara seems to find herself. She backs out hesitantly, tugging the door with her and they hear an almost inaudibly:

" No, nothing, nothing."

As the heavy door clicks closed, they gawp, stumped and speechless. Then each does a private little _what-the-hell_?-shrug and let their hushed musical massacre ebb out. Kate peaks over the partition, she can just make out Hugo's soaking wet auburn corkscrews.

" So Horace found out? He's the one who sent you off ?"

Hugo shakes his head so that the crazy Shirley Temple curls jump. Excessively expressive. She is just making small talk.

" No, no, Goodspeed doesn't know! It was LaFleur…..sent me here to keep it all hush-hush on the down-low. But I bet I know who like, told him about us. We were discreet and all, me and Lara. She is classy like that," he says stretching so that she can just about see his round brown eyes above the wall.

" So who squealed Hugo?"

He disappears behind the parting. Turning up the shower at its fiercest.

" Miles." His voice is muffled as if he is letting the water collect in his open mouth.

Kate glowers at nothing in particular. At the Dharma soap in her hand. She squeezes it so hard she leaves an imprint of her fingers around the edges.

_Knew it!_

_That son-of-a-bitch! _

She has a gut feeling that he somehow is behind her sudden and inexplicable banishment too. Probably set the whole thing up. Had a good laugh at her expense. Yes probably – and likely.

_The soulless prick!_.

" Miles huh? Why does that not surprise me at all?" she mutters.

" Yeah, well, like, I couldn't believe it either – thought we were buddies you know. But he saw us and then went all-out mental on me!"

" Doesn't seem like Miles' style. He is usually more of a persistent, grating, pain-in-the-neck, bugging people to hell and back kind of guy…" It doesn't sound right. She has a hard time picturing Miles loosing his cool. Can't imagine that knowing smirk, that absolute confidence ever slipping off.

" You think? Well, that's what I thought too. Made me think, like he has some kind of thing, or somethin' for her, ya know? I've caught him following the Changs around more than once. Weird like…. Stalking sort of…

" Really? Wonder what the heck is that man's problem?"

" Beats me dudette. Beats me…"

Hugo cuts of the water, killing off his shower. Stamping the floor as if he is trying to stomp himself dry. They both silently ponder annoying enigma that is Miles Straume.

Kate can make out the placid padding of wet feet on tiles and the soft rustle of clothes being pulled on, legs knocking against something, on the other side. _What the hell is wrong with Miles?_ And what on god's earth is wrong with her? It defies all common sense, all that is intelligent and normal and healthy. The way he lingers in her mind. His Siamese cat-smile and that funny inverted u-curve of his upper lip. Cinnamon, nutmeg and coriander. Bet he tastes like that too. _Bet he tastes like…._

_Ugh.. This - has – to- stop – now._

" Don't blame him though." says Hugo after a while. "I mean, she is incredibly hot an' all." The wood complains loudly as he sits himself down on the bench by the men's lockers.

" Yeah, she is"

It is Lara this, Lara that. _Wonder if it's right to tell him? _Probably better off not knowing. After all, it was nothing. And she would rather cut her ear off than hurt the wonderful human being that is sitting on the other side. Her only friend, it seems. She braces herself against the wall. Immobile. Indecisive. The water trickling rhythmically on the crown of her head.

" Couldn't believe it that she'd want to get together with lardpuppy like me," he sighs wistfully…." She says I am her little dumpling. We were gonna' go away, take the sub with her little critter and get the hell out of this place. I was gonna' be a daddy."

_U-hu. It seems pretty serious. The kid and all. – Shit._

"Hugo."

Oh, hell. How is this going to go down? If she'd known… _He might not understand. But he should know. _ He shouldn't build his whole future on this woman without knowing who she is. But then again, who is she to judge?

_Shit. She doesn't deserve his friendship. _

" Hugo…I have.."

" She says I'm her moon cake. She loves the way I look. Can you believe it!? She is going to ditch that miserable son of a bitch…For me! Can you freaking believe it?!"

" Hugo…You know how I am, I like anyone who likes me, can't help liking them… Was helping her out with some groceries…."

Shit. She is a rotten person, rotten to the core. Only right if he hates her. Like everyone else.

"What?"

" No self-control… I was going for the cheek and she sort of turned her head…So sorry Hugo…"

"WHAT?!"

"I may have accidentally kissed Lara, Hugo."

* * *


	10. It's no accident

'Seriously. We've had flirting,puking, bickering, fighting, fighting, fighting and more jealousy than you can shake a stick at.

The time is ripe for some excruciatingly nauseating fluff of hideous proportions. No half-assed fluff, but fluff, fluffier than a fluffy pink giggling honey-bunny in a peachy fuzzy angora cardigan and a tiara made of candy and lollipops. So please don't throw up on this fic.

And if you happen to be a delicate, sensitive soul - I suggest you just skip by all this crap and read someone else's, something decent. - Lot's of god fics out there.'

.

.

It's no accident

* * *

"If the person you are talking to doesn't appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear."

- Winnie the Pooh -

* * *

_Nothing. _

Absolutely nothing – is what he says.

He just leaves. She hears the shlosh-shlosh of his humid feet against the floor, a little like tentacles letting go. The mute, unspoken hurt in his footsteps echoing against naked tiled walls, and then the heavy door that shuts behind him. Not a word. Nothing. No reaction. He just leaves.

_Shit._

The water is growing colder, the warmth rapidly evaporating. But she can't make herself get out of the shower. She just stands there in the surreal fluorescent light. Letting the chilly water gush over her.

_Shit….. _

She is so stupid, so incredibly, ludicrously stupid. Hitting him pang boom in the middle of his soft defenseless underbelly. Hugo's skin - thinner than an apricot at the very best. _Moron!_ She scrapes herself up enough to turn the valve of the faucet off. As she stretches for her thin Dharma issue terrycloth towel on its simple hook, the door opens again. Her heart momentarily soars.

_All hope is not lost. They can talk_.

After all it isn't a big thing - not huge. Just a little wayward slip of the lips, more Lara's than hers, to tell the truth. She doesn't really swing that way, hot as Mrs. Chang might be.

-

The footsteps.

_Different._

Lighter, brisker.

She freezes up. Stiffly clutching the towel in front of her, scanty and ineffective shield as it is. The steps moccasin-soft now. Like someone deliberately slinking up.

_Barbara_? Or that creep - _Ceccherini? _

An unfathomable terror grasps her and she instinctively flattens herself back, slick against the wall. Paralyzed with the stone-cold, glossy ceramic against her damp skin.

_Please go away!_

_-_

_Pow._ Someone rounds the corner and her heart stops. Ambushed by a nondescript Dharma overall - roughly colliding with her bare skin and useless terrycloth buffer. A potentially blood curling scream, trapped in her throat, and her mouth grotesquely ajar in a shriek that never materializes.

_Something's familiar about…._

She struggles to rear the galloping blind panic back in. It dawns on her that she is ensnared and glued up to the wall, nose to nose with…

The sneaky bastard_!!!_

She is thrown. – fumbling, realigning to get her bearings back.

_Here? On Hydra!? _

She struggles to digest the reality of him here, edgy flammable, and in her face. The baffling, aggressive provocation of his stance. Too close. Too much. Too weird.

_What is he doing here?_

In an inconspicuously furtive move, he snakes both of his hands down. Artfully catching her wrists, restraining them down by her flanks. Not hurting her but not caring if he does either. Palms like warm toffee against her slippery wet coolness. The coarse fibers of his overalls against the delicate skin above her towel. And he just stands there - in an alarming proximity. If anything he edges closer still. Unfeasibly close. Staring her down as if he'd like to flame-grill her. Black and scorching. Grumpy and irrationally combustible at the same time.

_What the hell is his problem?_

She allows herself to take him in properly. _Damn!_ He is a right eyesore. Like he has fallen asleep and woken up in a barrel of sardines – angry martial art, ass-kicking sardines. Spiteful inky eyes sporting the two most extravagant shiners ever seen this side of professional boxing. An outrageous range of colors from deepest indigo to lightest lime yellow. As if someone has tap-danced all over his ugly face wearing steel spiked golf shoes. Knowing him -_ someone probably has._

His salt and pepper hair stands up in wild cowlicks and might as well have been styled with congealed gravy from the way it looks. Swarthy scarce stubble covers a small section of his stubborn chin and above his sullen mouth. The mouth. That dreadful sumptuous mouth, deep depressions at its corners. With the split bottom lip – and the upper one - implausibly sweet and crescent-shaped. _Shit._ She can't even go there.

So close. She can smell - no - savor him. His fragrance, puckish and ambrosial, all at once. That heady combination of nutmeg and ginger fudge. Of heat and of an unspoken dare. He doesn't budge a fraction. Obstinately, in her face. Boring down on her with an absurdly, illogical animosity as if she's personally, and single-handedly, to blame for both world terrorism and global warming.

_Speak. Say something. Diffuse…._

" What, what are you doing here?..." she manages. " On Hydra?" Needlessly wanting to clutch the towel to her, tucking it in closer. Protect herself.

_He has some nerve!_

"What do you think - just dropping by?! Was voted off freakhog island with the rest of you of course. " Awkwardly gruff and glowering like it is all _**her**_ fault..

He purses his lips. - Impossibly plump and raspberry sauce red.

Much as she tries to resist can't help staring. His cinnabar mouth. Her downfall. Sweet Madeira infused cherries and honey, now with a perfect gash in the middle. She doesn't know what it is about them – this affliction. Maybe the amount of cruel arrogant bullcrap that these lips have uttered in their days. Maybe it is her stupid, dreams. In any case – it is deeply disturbing.

He smirks as if he can hear every fucked-up thought in her head. Loud and clear - like he has first row, VIP seats, with a full blaring audio system announcing this crap out specifically. Shit. She hates that about him. The getting in under her skin, into her mind.

" You like? " he exhales, hot breath tickling her face. He stares back at her unflinchingly, hardly blinking. Black, derisive and volatile. Like he might spontaneously ignite at any given moment. Dark licorice and lemon sherbet fizz.

" Pffft, hardly!" Badly feigned nonchalance. Doesn't fool him one bit. Never did.

_Hates him. - Wants him._

" Ha. Still… - you're always checking me out," he says, eyes almost punching her out. They glimmer, a naughty pitch black somewhere in the middle of the bruising and the twirls of color. _How in the world does he keep his cool?_

" And so,.. you're always staring at me!"

An embarrassingly pathetic attempt at getting back that falls flat on its face. She regrets it the moment she says it. Impossible to throw out witty one-liners with his lean mischievous body crushed up against her, his lips inches away. _Oh, god. He knows_. He always knows.

" Maybe 'cause you're a total exhibitionist!"

He cocks his head. Mercurial cool cat grin. Looking slightly crooked and categorically insane, he swipes a sassy nod towards her paltry excuse for a towel. She clenches her armpits tighter against her body and the flimsy terrycloth, faded and washed threadbare into a pale nondescript color.

_Damn pervert._

She wasn't planning on saying anything but before she can stop herself, she blurts out, in a meek, pathetic little girls voice:

" Why didn't you come? The other night?"

She sounds like a victim. Someone who gets stood up. _Well – she did. _The humiliation; excruciating and raw.

" I _**was**_ there. Got an eyeful of the bouncy freckled twins too while you were submerged in booze. " Arrogant dip of his chin indicating her breasts with a snappy raise of sardonic eyebrows.

_Christ._ _Un-fucking-believable._ Slam-packed, bursting, full to the brim of one hundred per cent drivel! The kind of crap that spatters out of that snide potty-mouth of his….

" Ok, smartass - if you were there - what was I wearing for our big date?" _Ha, ha, got you there! _

" Ha, trick question - I like the way you think! You were wearing a stinky jumpsuit unbuttoned Elvis style to your bellybutton - letting both of the glorious jiggly twins play outdoors."

_Damned Dharma issue vodka!_

Her face, bright claret red while the maddening distraction of his thumbs sweeping her arms in small circles is making her blood fizzle. Baiting, Teasing, brushing her fidgety wrists with his smooth, softly padded thumbs. His grip solid, not giving her the slightest chance to yank her hands. _Damned Miles. __Evil son of a bitch! _And damn heart for jostling in her chest like an excited sparrow.

_He came. He was there, _it chirps_. _

" So - you got to ogle my boobs. Big deal Miles. Something for your teenage brain to doddle with when you are all alone picking at your pimples." _Looser! _

" Big fat chance of that. All I can picture right now is your puked-down wiggly fun-bags in LaFleur's big sleazy paws."

_Pah-paw! _Hitting back quicker than a cobra strikes_._ He looks down at her, unflappable, a vexing, belittling little half grin playing at the edge of his mouth. He just wants to flip her lid – oh he's so enjoying this. She knows this – and still - she can't stop herself from being drawn in.

" What?! What are you on about Miles?"

_What the hell is he talking about? _The sordid, repulsive image already burned into her psyche. She's got no idea what he's up to but she is aware of the eventuality that he might be onto something. Since honestly, she recalls absolutely zero - zilch - from night in question.

" Are you with him?" The blatant question, a buckshot in passing, catches her palpably off guard. She doesn't get it. Doesn't follow.

" What? Who?" Shaking her head in utter and flat-out incredulity.

" The big-wig. Jimbo, Jimmy-boy my man. Mr. hot-shot boss-man LaFleur! Who else?!" he blows hotly. Incomprehensively peeved and worked up.

_What has he been smoking?_ Frankly, she has no idea how to answer that. _With him? How? Where?_ He's with Barbie for god' sake! And she is here, cast off on a polar beer island, miles and miles away from both the security head and civilization. With him? A truly mind-blowing question.

.

.

* * *

And before she has time to collect herself enough to reply, someone enters the shower area. She recognizes Hugo's trundling footsteps. He only takes a few inside the door. Stops there. She thanks her lucky star that both she and her assailant are invisible from behind her cubicle. They stand there, hardly daring to breathe. Hands clasped to their sides like a prim Victorian couple.

"Kate! You still here?"

"Yeah, yeah Hugo….I'm here!"

Hugo permits himself a loud mournful, defeated sigh. As if he'd rather not have found her. She can hear him switching feet, shuffling slightly against the floor. Gathering strength to face her. To say what he's got to say.

" Look Kate, sorry to storm out like that….but….I've got to talk to you.."

" It's ok Hugo…I'm, I am sorry too.."

" No it's _**not**_ ok Kate. Dude it is s-o n-o-t fine. I am so mad at you, I could just , I

could just … I don't know what to do!!! "

" Yeah, I get that …I'm…" she mumbles though she doesn't get it at all. Not really. Unable to take the usually jovial and seemingly shallow Hugo quite seriously. Unable to fully empathize with him.

" I used to have your back, you know. During the whole screwing around, messing about with Sawyer and the doc saga. All that crap, leading them on and playing them against each other. You know - plenty of people called you a bitch behind your back."

_Bitch!? What the ….?! But, yeah, people do say the darnest things. _He doesn't wait for her reply - just continues. Seemingly in a hurry to get it all out before he regrets it.

"I used to feel sorry for you like, for being such a goof-up. And I defended you! Always did. But you know, you really are something Kate….really a piece of work dude! You just trample all over other people Kate!"

"Yeah…I'm so sorry Hugo….I really didn't mean to..."

Miles eyes on her, so close they are effectually blurred, blistering. Painfully intense.

She pulls her hand free to place her fingers up against his lips. Oh, crap. Would it have been any other time… He ignores her and takes charge of her hand, removing it from his mouth. Nudges even closer to her. Sandwiching her against the shiny wet tiles, he angles his head and burrows his face in the crook of her neck.

_Oh. _

Wrangling with him, trying to distance herself from that. _No, no, no, no_. Anything but that. _ Asshole! _That spot, the biggest chink in her armor_. _

_And how the hell does he know? The bastard. _

Some one has definitely kissed and told. She fumes as she considers the likely suspects. Probably Sawyer with his big yapping flapping mouth, But she wouldn't put it beyond Jack either.

_Damn._ She can clearly discern his smile against her neck. Wicked and goading. This is just entertainment to him – just a mean little game. Just wants to see how far he can go before she beats the living daylight out of him.

" Yeah, yeah, yeah. I just wanted to say….I know you're having a tough time with Jules and Sawyer and all but… "

" Didn't mean to…" She interrupts but doesn't manage to finish. He cuts her off, his cracked voice harsh and sore, and very obviously wounded.

"I know it's pretty shitty right now….but still. That's not an excuse! Dude, what the hell?!! What the fuck?! You could have had anybody…still you had to…

" I didn't think. It just happened…. I really didn't think." she mumbles. Not used to this Hugo - the furious, cussing Hugo.

_Miles._

His lips against her throat. She can't stand it. His breath on her neck, in her ear. She can't help inhaling. His hair right there near her face. And in spite of it looking sullied and filthy like it was washed and soaked in beef-juice, the scent is inebriating. Like clean linen hung out to dry on a sweltering, late summer day. _Shit!_

_Focus Kate - focus!_

She takes another stab at loosening his iron-grip on her hands. Impossible. He doesn't give her an inch._ What the hell does he want? _She can't think straight. It is impossible. Warm cinnamon mocha against her. Adjoined in a quasi embrace by the sheer weight of his torso backing her up to the wall. Like hanging out with an unhinged homemade Molotov cocktail squashed up against you. She has no idea what he is up to. _No idea what he is playing at._

" Dude, maybe you _**should**_ have! Maybe _**for once**_ you should have thought before you did something!"

The big gentle guy sounds like he is on the verge of crying now. She can't believe it. Over one little stupid kiss. That meant less than nothing. A silly misunderstanding. But Miles releases her there and then, letting some air seep in between them and the instance he steps away, she finds herself missing him. The smell of him. The pressure.

She is suddenly vulnerable, feeling the contempt behind Miles' retreat. As if she had just revealed to have a penchant for bludgeoning cuddly baby seals to death with a spiky club. Though come to think of it, what the hell is there to like about her? She has managed to bring the finest man on earth to tears. It's like being responsible for making the Dalai Lama bawl his eyes out. It's just not something you do.

" I know, I am so sorry Hugo…" Useless repetition of meaningless words. She doesn't know what else to say. She is mostly just sorry she told him. The kiss, she still doesn't feel she had anything to do with it. Lara was the aggressor and she was just an easy prey. But she can't say this to Hugo, not about his beloved. _Shit. _Not daring to look at Miles' stiff posture in front of her. She find herself wanting him back, thrust against her. _Breathless._

" Yeah man, – some self-control would be nice for a change!"

Her undivided concentration on Hugo. She tries to block out the distraction of Miles' ugly, gorgeously ugly, butterscotch face.

And just like that, in an unguarded millisecond, Miles executes some sneaky-ass brazen kung-fu move on her, whipping his nimble fingers by. She barely has a chance to register it before her towels falls down around her hips. She can't help letting out a little gasp.

"_Hmmff!"_

" Good thing I don't have to see your face… 'cause dude I can't even stand the thought of you right now, I'm so pissed Kate!"

_The dirty little swine!_

" Oh…oh" she can't speak.

_Damn Miles to hell and back! The pervy son of a bitch._

Quick and lithe as a demon he glides back in audaciously, catching her flighty hands, solid grip on her wrists. Holds them there, preventing her from tugging the towel back up. Her breast, cushiony vanilla cream exposed, rammed against the scuffing fabric of his uniform. And there it is. The tease. His capricious little victory - triumphing over her. He loves the fact that with Hugo here, there is nothing she can do. Rendering her decidedly incapacitated and powerless to bash his cheeky-ass head in.

_Crap. Crap. She can't have this. None of it!_

" I just don't know Kate. I know you have your problems and all but this is way beyond that. Totally unbelievable…and I thought you were my buddy … really did."

" All the same, know that I am sorry Hugo. For the for everything… so sorry."

Desperately trying reach the towel, to cover up. He doesn't let her. Just smiles blissfully like it is bloody D-day and his trickery alone have just won the entire war. She can't think. Deliciously hot, his heat clearly discernable through the ugly beige jumpsuit, coarse and abrasive against her chest.

_The gall of him! _

"Sss, 's ok. Well, no – hell no! It's not ok. From now on, just stay out of my face Kate!" Out of ammo now, he backs off, disengages. He stomps out as if to prove a point, letting the heavy door fall shut. Just what was missing.

_Shit. - There goes her last friend._

* * *

And here she is, trapped by the devil himself.

He's here. For some incomprehensible reason, _he is here. With her_. All irrepressible cruel playfulness. She is terrified. And seriously piqued but - all the same- drawn in by his weird outlandish galvanism. The almost electrical tension he gives off. A downright mystery – an angry pissed-off charge - that she finds oddly alluring. He isn't anything special at all. Just a guy. Just a grumpy, disagreeable guy. Distant and sarcastic and unreservedly wrong for her….Well wrong like all the men before him were wrong. She knows this is her thing. She will, without fail, pick the guy she is least likely to end up having a functioning relationship with. Her mother has sure set a daunting precedent with her debilitated, screwed-up history of marriages and men.

This simpering little-girl-crush. She could kiss him right now. His lips are a flutter away and she could just lean forward. It wouldn't be so hard. What would he do? Beat her off? Say something nasty and make her feel like a brazen hussy? _Yeah, most likely the latter._

She doesn't understand her fear of him, the pure terror of being ridiculed or rejected. It is a peculiarly new and foreign sensation to her. Impossible for her to stay in anything, stick with anything, but she was never afraid to take what she wanted, to make the first move. She is not sure of many things but a constant in her life, something she has always been sure of, is her own beauty. She doesn't think of it often, takes it completely for granted – it just is. God knows she has used it to get what she wants more times than she cares to think of.

But this scares her. _**He**_ scares her. She doesn't know what he wants with her. _Yes you do! He just wants to play a bit. He is bored and this is what he does. At your expense._

" So what was that all about?" he asks. " You making Hugo cry?" He tuts-tuts like a disappointed mother hen. He is far to slick to leave his mouth agape at the scene he has just witnessed. He pretends it is nothing. But she can see the curiosity winning over whatever fucked-up emotions he came in with.

" Oh, that," she has to force herself to keep the fluster out of her voice. _Stupid, stupid crush! _But if he can play it cool, so can she. At the very least she can try.

" I accidentally kissed someone."

"How _**do**_ you accidentally kiss someone? Was it a hit and run or a slow burner? Did you stumble, fall down on someone, slip onto somebody's mouth – how does something like that even happen? How? " Supercilious, deliberately winding her up. He is enjoying this. Relishing in it. The leering, the teasing and the mocking.

" Well, it _**was**_ an accident!" Priggish, prickly and hypersensitive. " I didn't mean for it to happen. I sort of went in for a polite peck on the cheek and ended up on the lips."

Miles wily, sly gaze searing across her naked shoulders. He leans back enough to be able to enjoy the unclad sight of her properly, maintaining their body contact low below the stomach. Hipbones meeting hipbones. Towel squashed in between them. Determinedly restraining her hands. And he just looks. Just looks at her.

_What he does, he does so well._

He might as well have had his hands on her. Black cat eyes licking across her throat, lapping down to the crevice, circling a horizontal eight on her chest. They dip down her belly, brushing far down, as low as they can and then flickering back up slowly the very same route. _Oomph_ - finally landing on her lips. She realizes she has been holding her breath too long. A little huff escapes her.

The cheek of him! What the hell does he think he is doing? She knows she could fight him. Effortlessly. She could get him with one well-aimed head-butt. She is no shrinking violet. And it wouldn't be the first time.

_Why don't you do it then?_

He takes in the full vision of her, naked to the waist down. Quite obviously far too delighted with the view for his own good. She squirms, tugs at her hands, trying to twist them free. She isn't prude – not really. That is mostly an act. She's got nothing to hide but this excruciatingly embarrassing puppy love. And she doesn't entirely trust herself. Not at all actually.

_Here with him_.

And then he smiles. At their predicament, at the sight of her halfhearted struggle. In a way she is not used to. His whole naughty feline face cracks up in an ear to ear smile, stretching his funny non-existent cupid's bow so that it looks like it is going to split in the middle.

_The beauty of him right here. It unravels her._

" An accident…imagine that, " he repeats, knowing full well that he has the upper hand. The annoying gravitation towards him. She wants to kick her heels in. Resist. She bucks her back as far as it can go. Which isn't very far.

_Wall pushing up against her naked back, sleek infuriating bastard from the front. _

" Yes, an accident!" she says tartly. Thinking that this would have been a good moment to shove him away, aim a punch at his already broken-up face. Get away. She _doesn't _want this. Not him. Not now. Not ever. But there's this other woman in her head, whispering, "_let your hair down – let him in – live a little. _" She hates that bitch. She imagines she has Juliet's smug, self-satisfied face.

He leans forward then, defying all rationality. Defying reason. She knows this is the time to bolt, butt her forehead hard and merciless against his swollen nose, knock him senseless.

_But she doesn't._

" An accident huh…?"

With that his hot mouth finds her temple, his lips delicious and dizzying, a hair's breadth away. Balmy and dulcet breath against the fine downy skin on the top of her cheek. Rounding the curve of her cheekbone, his breath on her lashes. _Oh._ She closes her eyes but she doesn't turn away. The hue and cry of an alarm deafening in her ears.

_This is no accident. _

Not ready. She doesn't know if she'll ever be. And who is he anyway? Just another man who for sure - of this there is no doubt -will break her heart a little more.

_This is ridiculous. She will regret it_

" Like this….?" The words, murmured, feathery breath painting a determined route across her face, down the slope of her cheek. _A kiss._ A lapse of judgement; all creamy vanilla and blackberries. Innocent, like her first, at the corner of her mouth.

_She shouldn't do this. Mustn't. _

" Or like this ….?" He glides over her lips with his. Nudges them open. Unbearable tangy sweetness and inflamed peppery fervour. She breaks and disintegrates upon impact. She can't. Still. _This is no accident_. She meets him . Surrenders to the taste of cayenne and of sugared lemon flowers. A delicious transgression.

_It's no accident. _

The soft wonder of his mouth, grazing hers. _Who would have thought it would be like this? Who would have thought…..? _A pendulum between fiery and sweet_. _She senses acutely, the basso rilievo of every little minute vertical cleft, the slightly chaffing sensation of the split bottom lip. Humid, honeyed and heated. The succulent upper half moon caressing hers. Staggeringly, knock-your-socks-off tender.

_It's nothing special. Just a crush._

_Don't stop. Don't._

She inhales sharply breaking the moment of apnea. She has to, the urgency, too much. Too soon. She pulls away brusquely, painfully aware of the way his whole body presses up, leans onto her in poignant perfection.

" Something like that?" he whispers oddly winded and tender, visibly out of balance.

Suddenly incongruously timid. All his smooth swagger and oomph gone.– spent just like that. He looks like a beaten puppy, hair crazily slicked whatever which way. His eyes wavering, shyly – in a way that she doesn't recognize.

" No. No it wasn't." she rebuts, indignant, all senses on fire.

_Who would have thought…?_

"No," she repeats. " It was nothing like that!"

* * *

.

.

_Nauseous yet? A marathon fluff session that is bound to run into next chapter. Sorry, got really caught up and now I can't stop… Don't hit me over the head with a pick axe, ok?.... ok?... Are we ok?...Are we?_


	11. Stifled emotions

Possibly the longest communal shower scene in the history of fanfics. Some more smooching and a whole lot of bottled up sentiments.

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Stifled Emotions

* * *

" Disproportionate rage or anger, overreaction to minor provocation, and cynicism are embodiments of suppressed emotion. "

Stephen R. Covey

_._

* * *

Miles is a big old devoted, dyed-in-the-wool fan of repressed emotions. Always has been. Honestly. Jam it all up, apply a bit of pressure and put a big whopping cork in it. Who the hell wants to see it all hang out?

Gross is what it is.

Keep your funky business bottled up and the world will be the better for it - this is Miles staunch motto. That and: "money is king". He totally prescribes to that one. And unless you are a freaking hotshot psychoanalyst and can combine those two maxims, just shut the fuck up and make like all is fine and dandy.

This is why, the current on-goings back at the house, are positively giving him an allergy. He swears, the appearance of angry red itchy spots down his chest is a direct result of the whiny, snivelling Doc's delusional hallucinations. Oh, and of the two scientists' exhausting nit-picking plotting and conspiring.

But worst of all: LaFleur's pathetic, monumentally _**p-a-t-he-t-i-c**_ kvetching and moaning. The fucking epically tediousness of it.

It's: _Juliet this, Juliet that. Love of my life- bada-bada-badah_. It makes the veins at his temples stand out like grotesque overstretched leeches. The aversion towards all the icky overly sentimental goop - enough to give him a brain embolism.

In order to get a moment of peace in his own home, he had brokered a deal _(an ingenious deal, if he might say so himself!) _with Jules. The gist of this pact was to have the blubbering redneck bumpkin bumped off. And since this could not literally be arranged (though Jack seemed eager enough to oblige) then at least he could be bumped as far as to his and Jules home. And it was decided, through long bickering, exhausting deliberations on all sides, that Jules would shack up with the guys from now on. Jin was curiously enthusiastic about this arrangement and put his legendary Shiatsu massage skills on the negotiating table as a bargaining tool to further the cause to Miles' advantage.

Anyhow, it truly was a stroke of pure genius! Turning a living hell situation into a pure bliss, three men and a babe situation. Well, it might have been if only it weren't for the other two uninvited houseguests. The homicidal janitor-slash-quack and the betrayed husband who seemingly didn't have the slightest inkling as to how undesirable their mere existence was. You got to love her though – Jules -fucking queen supreme of hang-ups and inhibition. _Love her!_ Goddamn hot empress of stifled emotions and stiff upper lips in exchange for that mewling, whining and griping monstrosity of dude.

_See! Everybody wins._

In any case, Miles was extremely, exceptionally satisfied with himself and his brilliant arrangement. Besides Juliet is an excellent cook and truthfully, things hadn't been the same since Hugo and his (some would say; notorious) garlic mayonnaise had departed.

Now if he could only find a place to ditch Jackass too - all would be sunny happy days at villa de Miles. Oh, and fruity Dan and Papa-san too for that matter. Jin could go too for all that he cares. As of late, he has seemed far too perky at Miles' misfortunes. If only…

That would leave Miles, grand master of smothered, quelched sentiments with the calm, unruffled deadpan ice princess of cool.

_Perfetto._

* * *

.

Now, things hadn't exactly work out like that. And it isn't something he'd like to dwell over. In fact, he's starting to think that there is a possibility of the existence of a higher being.

.

* * *

.

.

He had arrived to the island with the late evening ferry, and frankly only had her on his mind. It was like chasing after a skittish fucking annoying unicorn. Elusive, mythical and impossible – and if you speak of her – people will invariably think that you are ready for the loony bin. Not that he would – speak of her. Never.

The whole getting laid in the near future-plot is a swiftly dwindling prospect. Hell, who is he kidding – of no hope at all –impossibly bleak, doomed, crushed, null and void. He had even considered going back to the ditzy Cindy, to try to ignore the whole yuck-feeling and all. But somehow, even the most concentrated focus on Cindy's plus-points; the tittering, giggly blondness, her bountiful assets and her, _ehem_, easiness, did not appeal.

_._

He had gotten to the Hydra Station late and gone looking for her immediately. Not able to wait till the morning. The sight awaiting him in the stark shower cubicle had almost had him confessing to a newfound belief in divinity. What fantastic, fabulous deity would have him wandering about, randomly checking for her and then serve her on a silver platter like the glorious fodder of his wet dreams? All glistening naked wet skin, surprisingly sweet-smelling and fragrant.

He had almost keeled over at the sight of her too. He doesn't know from where he got it but he had managed to bring out his smoothest, coolest and most aloof Miles. He could hardly believe it himself. Shit. Some serious seducer-player shit he'd been able to pull out of his sleeve. Fucking impressive too, considering his severe lack of practice. It hardy took Casanova to get into Cindy's pants. He doesn't even know how the hell he got the courage. And it had led to some truly astonishing results. Her lithe body and the crazy softness of her girlish breasts pressed up against him.

Unnerving to say the least. Had to pretend to be someone else, all that put-on stud-muffin bravado taking a serious toll on him. And he finds that he can't keep it up. He runs out of it. Suddenly, all at once and without any warning what so ever.

_You are so fucked. – So fucked._

No. No. No. This _**is**_ not happening . No way - Jose! He's not having it. Any of it.

He panics as he realizes why he recognizes this. Louise Wilson, 4th grader, cute and popular little minx. Fucking heartbreaking crush. She wouldn't have anything to do with him – of course. He was a weirdo already back then. Called him a freaky dork and run back to her little evil militia of cool girls. Ponytail swinging tauntingly.

His nerves in smithereens, all flipping wiped out of smoothness. There is only so much he can do – and only for so long. The flirting he can do, the teasing and the mocking, trying to get her to flip out. That he can deal with. But this. No. No hell no.

He likes simplicity. Sex is sex and shouldn't be anything else. He doesn't do complicated. And Kate is complicated with big fucking ginourmous C with sprinkles on top. She is the freakin' K2 of complicated. _He should have known better._

_Royally fucked._

It was the kiss that ruined it all. It dislodged something within. As he planted a teasingly chaste little kiss. Right smack there in the sublime depression at the periphery of her mouth, something shook loose. Unglued him. He dared intrude on the fine succulent watermelon pink of her lips, so sure that she would turn away, cuff him across the face or kick his arse. Instead she had met him, parted lips and everything. Sweeter than a chocolate éclair, a bitter edgy taste of something else, something darker. Knocking him to hell's end. Intense, fervent and oddly innocent. And like that, he felt himself slipping, loosing his footing. Her, here, propelling him into orbit like some stupid Haley's comet that only comes around once in a blue moon.

Now he is standing here, panting like a big dumb Labrador, trying to get his ballast back in place. The taste of her, on his lips.

_Shit. What the hell __**wa**__s that!? _

" Something like that?" he whispered. His pulse, like a Sex Pistol percussion solo. Heck, even his hands trembling. Her sweet breath on him, like some industrial strength antidote to a cool, he feels jittery and weak-legged.

" No. No it wasn't." Seeming unexplainably pissed. "No. It was nothing like that!" Knotting her brows together and wrinkling up her ludicrously hard skinned nose.

_Fucking beautiful fucked-up girl._

The swelling down south that is what would be expected. He is a simple guy. An uncomplicated bastard. And that's exactly the way he likes it. But this, his frigging chest swelling like a fucking cupcake on steroids. Wild-assed flock of geese flapping up a racket in his stomach. The chain gang of hyperactive frogs doing a square dance in his throat. No. Not having it.

Crap. LaFleur is gonna' split in the middle goading him about this. He was spot on for once - the big dense dimwit! He's got it bad.

Merda.

Who the hell wants to go anywhere near where Sawyer has been diddling and fiddling around with his scary-ass seduction-conman repertoire. Miles rarely feels inadequate. In fact, his self-confidence is as solid as it can be considering he is a bit of a freak. He doesn't usually have any problems pulling babes with his sly humour and bad boy act. He's not specifically concerned about her history with the doc either.

He imagines that the pinnacle of Jack's sensuality might involve lighting a fucking aromatic candle – tops. No funky tantric moves or modus operandi a' la Kamasutra.

But Sawyer. Come on! Sawyer, LaFleur with those idiotic pit-like dimples in his cheeks, like a little naughty toy-boy chipmunk. Chicks dig that stuff! That Fabio-esque sun streaked long hair and all that boy band bronzed skin and relentlessly flaunted six-pack. Not that he notices stuff like that normally, but man it is hard not to when it is constantly being stuffed down your throat! Enough to make any straight -aced normal guy loose his dinner.

He doesn't know what kind of funky love Kate is used to but it frigging freaks him out. He wishes Hugo had been able to keep his big trap closed about all the sexy ways Kate and Sawyer been getting it on. Man, not something you want to think about, sandy beach sex and bear cages and what not.

* * *

But he is here. And she did kiss him back. He is certain of this. Though she obviously isn't very happy about it now, a pissy little look about her as if he smelled like manure. It's enough to make him let of her hands, still idiotically clasped in his.

She eyes him as if he were road-kill. A mega-large useless putrid road kill that she has accidentally hit, a big fat lard ass of road-kill that she now has to drag off the driving lane. Equal measures of antagonism and disgust and somehow it doesn't surprise him at all. He is still reeling from, absolutely flabbergasted by the stunts that she let him pull. Considering her brutal reputation and violent tendencies, it is remarkable in itself that he is still breathing and still in possession of all his limbs. He doesn't quite know what to make of it. This fire breathing dragoness in front of him. She did kiss him back through. Of this he's sure.

She glares at his uniform collar as if she is planning to draw blood from it. It makes him a tiny bit nervous. Upper lip slightly drawn in a sneer, revealing her somewhat large front teeth.

And then she stuns him. Supersonic lurch forward, grabbing him roughly by the lapels. Choleric - furiously yanking him in towards her. Her mouth, angry and afire. It's nothing like the sweet sensual softness of the first kiss. Nothing like it. This is like kissing Godzilla, only she is slightly hotter. Like an awkward frenzied teen petting jamboree. All grappling hands, colliding bones, teeth chipping, heads clanking, lips nipping action. Tumbling around, falling onto the cubicle walls like gravity has ceased to exist.

" Slow down…" he groans in an attempt to get out of there alive. Dude that girl has some pent up, repressed sexual frustration of her very own. Not that he should be complaining but man, it's turbulence at it's worst. More like a brawl between football hooligans than a make out session. They bounce off walls like rubber balls in an aggressive game of squash. And considering the slick, slippery wet floor, he isn't surprised at all when they both topple over in a big hysterical pile, limbs in a tangled disarray. Hers; cool and glossy and bare and his; boring Dharma khaki clad.

"Ouch!"

Her on top of him. Towel – _**not**_ where it is supposed to be. Teeheeing giggle and she accidentally knocks her forehead forcefully against his teeth. She rubs her eyebrow looking slightly contrite. Suddenly embarrassed by her brazenness. His lip split anew, a droplet of blood oozing out of the freshly ripped wound. She wipes it away, gently with her thumb. And like that Godzilla is sent packing and he finds himself with a sweet, albeit seriously fucked-up, alarmingly naked girl in his lap. Her dark soaked curls brushing against his face. The smell of pine, standard Dharma issue shampoo, mixed with something else, something uniquely hers. Vanilla and motor-oil – yep, he swears there is still a hint of motor-oil about her. He feels the wetness from the floor under his butt, seeping in all they way through his underwear. But he doesn't care. He can't help it. He sticks his nose in. Right below her ear. Deep breath. Inhale. _You may never get this chance again._

" So just a thought - why is it that you haven't bashed my brains in yet?" he mumbles in the protection of her wet hair.

She pulls back, peers at him under sopping wet auburn curls that hangs down like growths from an exotic tree, snaking down over her shoulders , down to her breasts like dark crawling roots. There is a flicker there of something. Of devil-may-care, warrior princess, of something wild and alive. It makes him choke.

" You know, I have absolutely no idea!" She laughs, a girlish snorting kind of laughter. A little pig-like laugh that has something stirring further down for some freaky-assed twisted reason. She is so totally unselfconscious. " But I just might yet…."

" Yeah, yeah. Hilarious," he sulks.

Like a dare, a challenge of sort to test her, he finds her mouth again. His lip smarts a bit at the contact, but then again, her lips, her tongue; delicious, candid and unafraid against his.

And he is falling. No. Plunging - like a huge boulder rolling off the edge of a ravine. The concept spreads like a catastrophic oil spill within. A true ecological disaster. Touching everything, staining everything. Thick and viscous gooey liquid swamping and inundating him. It will be hard to get rid of. _Shit. _

Her fingers playing with the short hairs at the nape of his neck, and he doesn't have to keep up his cool. Her chest heaving with every freaking laboured breath, little freckles splattered all over her buttermilk skin. His heart like a big soft meringue, inflating making it hard to think. Brittle and hypersensitive.

_Is she fucking serious?! Him? _

He lets his other hand wander, the cold naked smoothness of her back, like a marble statue of perfection. His fingers find the ridge of her backbone, stubborn fucking backbone. This girl has muscles, lean high strung muscles and as his fingers smoothes down her skin between her shoulder blades, he can feel them flaying under his hand, flexing, almost meeting his hand. And then , as he draws his fingers further down, to the little frail dip at the small of her back, he can feel her let go. The tips of his fingers, smoothing out the kinks. Relax. The hard tension released. He moves the towel to cover her up. Not because he's a gentleman or anything – _are you kidding!?_ Not because it means something. But he wants it just like this. Exactly like this.

Her in his lap, sleek like a wet baby pup. Infuriatingly beautiful, the warmth of her against him. The irrational taste of roasted almonds and crème caramel. The ludicrous sweetness of a warm hand caressing his neck like she means it. The strange reality of her quick flickering heartbeat sensed through his uniform. The suffocating and seraphic closeness of her. Oh fuck it.

He wants it just like this. The absurdly far-flung notion of an insane infatuation that might, just might be reciprocal.

* * *

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.

The pansy tickety-tick of two person's hurried entrance into the men's area.

_Oh hell! What now? WHAT NOW!?_

This place is sure popular. People not got better things to do on this shithole island? Does everyone have to be here, in the fricking shower? More traffic than rush hour at the Grand Station.

He looks at her there right next to his face; she's rolling her eyes at the bizarreness of it all. Her long pale legs leisurely stretched out in front of her like she doesn't have a care in the world. He hugs her closer, wrapping both arms around her here on the floor – tight tacky little bear hug – wishing both intruders to hell. The male voices across on the opposite side, annoyingly chatty and obviously middle aged. Two showers are turned on, full blast. The conversation floats over the partition in a cloud of hot steamy air.

" If I have to eat another one of Barbara's meals I will just have to tazer myself to oblivion. Atrocious! And I thought the Brits were bad cooks but mercy of heaven… she had really outdone herself tonight."

Perhaps the scientists? They have similar mannerism, measured and highbrow, educated voices. The type of people that seriously rub Miles the wrong way.

" I do say," says the other man. " Hey Malcolm, can you believe what's going on, on the mainland?"

" I don't know really," answers the other one. "It seems like all hell has broken loose over there. I tell you Harry, we re better off here, in spite of the abysmal food situation."

" It is just unbelievable, that someone would try to shoot a child!"

"Stuart suspects one of the new recruits. He seems to have been in cahoots with the hostiles all the time. An infiltrator. Still it is highly disturbing."

" Phil said something over the radio, seems like it is one of the menial workers. They are thinking it was one of the cleaners or something of the type."

" Yes, figures that it would be some delinquent lowlife who has managed to enrol with the initiative."

Shit what are they on about? They continue, man they are a gossipy pair of sissy-putz.

" So did you hear of Pierre? Unfortunately really," says one of them with a tone of voice that suggests that it isn't unfortunate at all. Miles' ear peak up. What has the old doochbag been up to now?

" You mean the thing with Lara? Yes, Horace told me that he moved out. I guess it has to do with Lara's usual indiscretions. Remember that thing with Barb?"

Some very unmanly giggling comes from the other man in way of a reply. The glee unmistakably.

" Of course. Who could forget Lara's renowned taste in bed partners? Only she would hook up with such a miserable cold cod as Barbara. Haha, do _**you**_ remember her fling with that janitor, Linus something?"

" Ah yes, brief as it was, but torrid story my friend – truly horrendous. Pierre is apparently pretty beat up about this latest one. Seems serious. He is talking a lot of nonsense and not really able to work. The Orchid labour has been put on hold."

" You don't say? Well, that serves him right after stealing the project from right under your nose Malcolm. I do say!"

" Well thank you Harry. How kind of you."

_What the fuck?! Mom!? Great mother of god!_

The stream of water stops abruptly, both of them, like they had synchronised their showers to perfection. They keep chatting, quipping about the food and Barbara's miserable failure to provide anything remotely eatable. Then the door locks shut behind their chirruping.

* * *

He feels like he could throw up. What the fuck - mom!? This is too much to take in. First this thing with Hugo, then Barbara and now Linus. Ben's father of all the disgusting creeps in the world. What the fuck?! – Shit. Shit. He is starting to feel if not compassion then at least something on the fringes of pity for his father. It is an astonishing discovery, that the old dog might not be a total swine after all and that his own mother might be, well…no , he isn't going to even think the word.

They are at an impasse. Neither of them willing or able to move. He shakes the thought of his mother, the Jezebel of the Dharma Initiative and tries to focus on her, here in his lap. His legs almost loosing their sensation from the weight of her, pissy, angry ants crawling up and down inside his feet.

There is just one thing that is nagging at the back of his mind. He's got to ask. Just have to.

" So what's the deal with you and Sawyer really?" He invests as much aloofness and indifference as he can muster into the question. _And what is this? What do you want with this?_ He wants to ask her but he can't. It's just not something he does.

" Oh." She seems caught off guard. Surprised by the question. To his great dismay, it has her darting up; grappling to stand up, get away from him, wrapping the towel closely around her. She steadies herself with one hand on his head as if he were a mere sidetable.

She isn't going to answer. Crap. What does it mean? What the heck does it mean?!

" So - you with him? Or anyone else?" He has to know. He can't help it.

She a-hems. Turning her back on him, she grabs her clothes on the bench by the lockers in front of them. He clambers up, with a strong grip on the shower faucet. Fuck, his whole butt is sogging wet.

" No, no one in particular. I mean, there has been the odd drunken kiss but not with him. Sawyer and I are history. " She turns her back to him and starts pulling her clothes on. Quickly like she can't wait to buzz off. To get away from him.

At first the sheer relief of it is ridiculous – not Sawyer – not Sawyer! Yes! Then, the enemy you don't know is usually worse, so who the fuck has she been smooching up to? _Bet it's Jin, the bastard._ That offhanded comment regarding her violent nature and the sabotaging his date with his atrociously ugly tie. Jin_ . Going to kill that prick!_

" So lots of fun stuff going on in Dharma land." He tries to chitchat. " So Kate -who _**did**_ you have to kiss to get on Hugo's bad side?"

She turns her head just to give him her shut-the-fuck up look, hands on hips, chin lifted in a mind-your-own-fucking-business stance.

_Here it comes. _

" If you've got to know Miles, though I really don't see what it's got to do with you and you are an idiot for not having figured this out yourself seeing as how upset Hugo is, " she says, excruciating little pause for effect. "It was Mrs. Chang - Lara."

He had steeled himself for whatever she might say. But not this. Not this. He is aware of his mouth gapping silently, gasping, not able to form words. He is speechless, perhaps for the very first time in his whole miserable yapping life.

* * *

Kate doesn't get it. Doesn't get him. His reaction is mind blowing. What is his problem?

" You too…you….You …." he gapes at her while backing away pointing his index finger at her like she is Satan herself.

" You big slut!!"

He walks backwards shaking his head in disbelief, and the only thing she can imagine is that Hugo was right. Miles _**does**_ have a thing for Lara Chang.

_Wow, that girl sure gets around. _

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Thanks for reviewing! It thrills me to the bone when you do.


	12. Dumping ground

Pfew. Ok, so we've got that out of a way. Though I have to say, it did absolutely nothing, nothing, to quell my obsession with the gorgeous piece of man-candy that is K. L (Miles). Mmm…. mmm_.( Index finger and thumb in shape of a telephone frantically mouthing: "Ken - call me!")_

**-**

Ehem. _(Trying to regain some self control…)_

_-_

I have taken some liberties with the geographical surroundings of the Hydra station as well as some outrageous freedom regarding the ins and outs of caring for polar bears. If there are any zoo keepers reading this – I suggest you just skip on to happier grounds – or you will doubtlessly take a sledge hammer to your PC in the rage induced by the ridiculous counsel on proper bear sanitation offered here. Coming right up….

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Dumping ground

* * *

'Sufficiently advanced cluelessness is indistinguishable from malice.'

_Clark's Law_

* * *

.

Barbara isn't exactly spoiled for entertainment. The height of amusement available at Hydra traditionally provided by the scientists bickering about who's turn it is to choose the Friday night board game. It might not be strange then, that the sudden arrival of the three new ragtag members to the station has already exceeded her wildest expectations.

_Her new subordinates._

She likes the sound of that. Having been the bottom scrape of the barrel for far too long.

She ought to get back indoors, she has a ton of things to do before starting lunch but she just can't tear herself away. Her oddly large feet are planted to the ground. She stands a bit away from their direct view and just watches. Strong twig-like arms crossed across her flat, gaunt chest.

_Something has changed in the group dynamic._

The vibes are palpably different since the arrival last night of that grumpy, unpleasant beat-up Asian guy. The two others, the fat one and the girl had seemed chummy enough when it was just the two of them. But all that has changed over night. Today, this stifling hot morning, all bets are off. The hostility lies like a thick sticky layer over the three and it puzzles Barbara to no end.

She had gathered them around to instruct them on the difficult tasks ahead - of giving the bear cages a proper scrubbing. It isn't an easy assignment under any conditions, clever cunning animals that they are. It provides for certain – well - challenges. The biggest obstacle, managing to lure the bears inside their dens using some kind of delicious bear candy, like seal eyes or rotten fish, as bait. This step is crucial and the most problematical. Having retrieved the goodies, the bears, who seem to be discerningly glued in on the duping part, will infallibly try to bolt as you struggle with the cumbersome heavy trap door. A proper spruce up of the cages will take the better part of a day and getting access to the them in the first place requires meticulous team-work.

Angry-Asian guy is in charge of setting up the bait by sticking his arm in between the bars of the short passage between the lighter outer hatch door and the inner, massive metal gate controlled by curly-fat-guy. Pretty girl is standing on top of the passage's thick metal barred roof, carrying on some hazardous acrobatic bouncing while looking preposterously content. Barbara can swear that she saw her almost skipping with joy up there. Not an easy feat to pull off while balancing on the one-inch wide iron rods. Pretty girl is supposed to tug up the rope that controls the outer door just as the bear has caught a whiff of the goodies. Obviously for this to work, one has to shut the passage just at the right instant, before the bear has had time to pause and retreat. And they will. Inevitably. Quick as demons - bears are.

It doesn't take a PhD to see that there is absolutely nil chance of any type of team-work to materialize between these three bozos today. _Just won't happen_. They have been at it for three hours. And if half of the exertion extended at annoying each other had been focused at the task at hand, Barbara is certain the job would have been a done deal by now.

That ugly busted-ass guy is the worst of the bunch. In fact; angry-Asian-guy is turning out to be a truly atrocious person. All piss and vinegar- a flagrant exhibition of antisocial behaviour.

_No wonder the mainlanders sent him off. Hydra is used to deal with other Dharma rejects. _

He is clearly not fit to be in the company of civilized people. Not that the other two are much better eggs but he certainly takes the prize. Angry-Asian-guy will gesture something rude or hiss under his breath at every single opportunity he gets. She can almost swear that she heard him wheeze; "ho-bitch" to pretty-girl in passing. And if she was better at lip reading she'd known for certain that he is repeatedly mouthing " I will kill you" to the curly-fat-guy while signalling with his index finger in a cutting horizontal motion across his own throat.

At first Barbara is pretty pleased that she can't catch most of it. But then as his behaviour grows ruder and more offensive by the minute she finds herself dangling between being mightily impressed and properly appalled.

Angry-Asian-guy seems capable of producing the most blatant and vulgar abuse with an astonishing variation and speed. She can't help being enthralled by him and his obvious evil creative genius. Realizing that she must have lived a very sheltered life - she has seriously missed out! _Who would have thought there were so many sordid words to describe a woman of doubtful morals?_ It is a kind of thrilling and illegitimate pleasure watch.

The fat guy with the corkscrews is not treating his pretty friend much better. He is sweating copious amounts, staining both the back and the front of his overalls. He is the one in charge of manipulating the monstrously bulky inner hatch door. The girl is sucking up to him big time, trying to cajole and sweet-talk him and he just gives her the heavy-duty cold shoulder. Demonstratively turning his back to her painstaking attempts making her look like an annoying yapping little lapdog.

The way she plays the angry-Asian-guy eminently more gratifying to witness. Oh the drama, the theatrics, the top of the line performance has Barbara in awe. She alternates by pretending to be completely aloof and immune to his insults and then pulls some serious stealth action abuse of her own. The girl has some skills, even Barbara who is quite alien to this sort of outlandish shenanigans can't help to notice.

She is sleek and quick and sets him up for failure in a way that he has no way of catching on to. She continuously scrabbles, and bungles the whole project up by slipping up just so,

marginally, making it impossible for him to tell if it is intentional or not. But Barbara is no fool, she knows that the way the girl fumbles with the first trap door so preposterously ineptly just can't be anything else than underhanded purposely taunting of angry-Asian-guy. A wicked hawk-like alertness glimmering in her eyes. Barbara is finding herself liking this girl more and more with each unashamed calculated blunder.

"Whoops-a-daisy." She twitters sweetly, flashing angry-Asian-guy a toothy grin.

He glowers at her. _Bad looser_. Barbara can tell that the girl definitely has the advantage in this, whatever sick mind-game the two are embroiled in. She flips him the bird behind his back when he returns his attention to rigging the bait again. What is truly baffling though is that intermingled with the childish pulling of grotesque grimaces behind each other's backs, there is an odd air of something else. As angy-Asian-guy bends down to yet again position the nauseating fishy bear bribe, pretty-girl just stands there above him, her weight precariously on one leg, shamelessly ogling his upturned bottom. Barbara is by no means an experienced woman but the raw look of lust she dignifies his drab overall clad behind with is impossible to overlook.

_And inexplicable._

Barbara hasn't enjoyed herself this much since she got to Hydra over a year ago. In fact, she finds that the entertainment value of having three brand new albeit seriously screwed-up subordinates is considerable and it is with much regret she retires towards the kitchen.

.

* * *

.

.

_This is hell on earth. Hades' fucking abyss._

He has spent the entire night unable to sleep, tortuously distorted on the ridiculously narrow cot. What twisted, perverted mind had designed these fucking bird-nest sized cots? Shit, not even enough space to fart for Pete's sake. His ass had been rammed flatly against the cold cement wall and his hands forced to cling desperately to the edge of the bed. He had repeatedly and pointlessly tried to fluff up his pillow in an effort to make the 3-inch wide bed slightly more comfortable. Fat luck of that, with a pillow about as plump and fluffable as a sheet of damp sandpaper.

He hadn't been able to catch more than a wink or two before dawn. What with Hugo snoring like a congested walrus and refusing to do the civilized thing which would be to close the frigging door. But what was worse was that his allotted _room_, and it would be generous to call it room since it is more of a crypt belonging to the Prince of Darkness than a room, had been located right next to _**hers**_.

_Kate. In number three_.

Sleep - out of the question. With her there, fucking bricks away from him. The consequence being that today, this first fucking morning in purgatory, he is in a historically filthy mood. It freakishly hot and he sweats like a pig in a blanket. It must have rained, and in any case, the insane clamminess of the island so aptly named Hydra, has made the ground muddy and slippery making it hard just to get from point A to B. The moisture of the air envelops him. It's like being submerged in a bowlful of jelly. Even the sounds of the hysterical jungle insects seem to travel at a different speed, their rowdy serenading muffled by the heavy thick air.

His head is pounding incessantly at the thought of his fucking company. Both of them, driving him completely over-the-edge-psycho. It isn't his fault that the mere vicinity of those two idiots sends him in to, what will turn out to be, an epically low as personal temper tantrum goes.

When they had been sent off to their task of the day, to do the frigging mama bear's housekeeping, the little pissed off neurons in his brain had nearly imploded.

_The mythical fucking cage._

He had stopped in his tracks at the sight of it and bit his lip until he could taste blood. He is soaked through and through with an anger. As cool and aloof as a peeved-out hyperactive leprechaun. His left leg fricking twitches as he tries to stand still for the frigging bear poop-cleaning lecture being presented by that the colourless plate of corned beef that is their new "capo".

_How the Dicken's frigging beard do you get your groove on in a fetid old bear coop?_

It must take some complete far out, off the wall lack of inhibition that Miles can't claim to have. Kate is standing next to Hugo swinging her large aluminium bucket jollily like she was on her way to a fucking picnic at the zoo. A glance at her, her dark wild hair held back by a red paisley patterned headscarf tied cutsie-pooey at the back of her neck. Apple-red cheeks, innocently rounded. A shit-eating grin that rhymes badly with the ingenuous girl-child image she obviously is trying to portray. Enough to make him want to hurt her. Or someone.

Fuck.

_Should have been me._

His heart does some weird shit in his chest at the thought of Kate with the freaking love-god in that cramped enclosure. His stomach knots in all four corners. He takes up his frenetic pacing on site moving his feet continuously on the spot. Anything is better than the funky unwitting leg-muscle spasms. Incapable to stand still even for a second. Unable to look at that infernal _bear-slash-funky-love-shack_ a second longer, he turns his back to it, waiting for Barbara-the-boss to finish her monotonous briefing. He doesn't catch a word she says. Not a single word. _Barbara…hmm, rings a bell but he can't really put his finger on as to why…_

_Fucking bear cage._

_Fuck LaFleur. - Fuck that saucy pervert! _

Fuck their sordid sexy history. Why the fuck did it have to be fucking S-a-w-y-e-r? With her? It is just so fucking ironic, that now that he could have had a fucking chance, they are here, right back where the freaky little monstrosity of the fucking Sawyer-Kate love entanglement swelled out into epically orgasmic proportions. Fuck Jack also for telling Hugo – and fuck Hugo for being so completely impossibly unable to keep anything under his fucking lid. And fuck his own big fat fucked-up mouth for not knowing when to shut the fuck up.

_Fuck all that!_

" Here's the bait buddy. You know what to do right?"

Hugo's big keen eyes trying to catch his while eagerly stretching out a bucket filled to the brim with something that a whale has probably gagged on.

_Ouf. The stink. _

He snatches it testily, without a word, managing to splash some of the unspeakably slimy gunk onto the front of his overalls.

_Oh balls!_

So how frigging hard can this be? Bait the flipping bear. Get his hairy ass into the tunnel, and shut the fucking door for fucks sake. But Miles soon finds that he has seriously underrated the power of stupidity. Or is it stupidity?

"Whoops-a-daisy" Kate's chirping from the top of the hatch when she slips up for the umpteenth time, infuriatingly grating on his quivering mass of nerves. Big ear-to-ear, face splitting fake-regretful Joker smile.

"Sorry Miles! Lets try it again!"

Hugo rolls his eyes at her transparent act in an obvious attempt at kissing ass. Miles just has to shoot him a piss-off glare and Hugo looks down at his big feet like an overgrown hurt child. Sticking his bottom lip out in a big mopey pout.

" Ready!" She shouts in a chipper voice that makes his bloody blood boil. She is leaning carelessly backwards like a person with a death wish, grasping the thick hemp rope with both hands, oddly at home on the top of the bars. A cross between Pippi Longstocking and fucking Indiana Jones. She looks luridly happy.

He can't concentrate. It is impossible. It's sick, is what it is. Holding his breath he bends over to stick in a handful of gloppy bait again.

" Watch-out, here he comes again!" she singsongs and he can hear the rustling of her soles against the bars as she braces herself to pull up the trapdoor again.

_Accidental kiss. – Load of bollocks!_

He admits that he might well be a bigot for feeling like this. He has never had a problem with, or you could say, he would definitely class himself as a liberal pro girl-on-girl action. But the horrific scene is playing on a diabolical loop in his brain, over and over again. And in his imagination, the kiss is all heated and frenzied, greedy hands sliding over naked skin. The type of kiss that he didn't have the guts to give her. But his mom probably did.

_How could he have been so stupid? _

_He wishes, oh god he wishes, he'd never found out. _

Oh buggeroo. History blatantly repeats itself. Bear in, bear snatches bait, bear bails out before Pippi fucking useless Longstocking manages to drop the damn hatch.

_This is getting old._

Another roll of eyes from jumbo. Miles cuts it short by mouthing a _"one word and your dead!_" this time, finger pointed to the temple for extra frigging emphasise.

Some badly disguised sniggering from above his head, and then all artificially sugar-sweet and sappy:

" Oops, sorry guys – it slipped!"

_Well fuck me Freddy._ He can't help a fleeting look upwards. She is making some kind of clownfish face. Lips pouting red and moist, eyes wide and round and insane, cheek blown up in mockery. Wisps of hair having escaped from behind the scarf around her forehead, crazy and fuzzy like Crusty the clown.

_Lord have mercy._

And although, he does have more urgent matters at hand right now, his mind betrays him by lolling off to Kate and the shower. Come to think of it, the desire to blow his brains out with the high compression water at his feet is overwhelming. What the hell's bells did he have to do that for? Why did he have to ask that question? His thoughts wanders wistfully to what might have been, what might have happened if he hadn't been the largest dork ever to be born. He could have been blissfully ignorant. He could have spent the night there. In her cell – the alluring number three.

It seems an infuriatingly plausible turn of events now. Now that it is not ever likely to happen. He imagines her pale long legs draped around him and her head thrown back, exposing a long stretch of white neck. Dark hair spilling out across the pillow like in some goddamn romance novel. He imagines her sounds, how she might sound as he moves with her and shit. Shit! He inhales in a ridiculous haste, causing a fit of coughing so strong he practically oozes bear bait out of every orifice.

" You cool buddy?" Hugo peers at him with pretended concern from his position on top of the heavy inner door.

" Fuck off." He sneers, the best he can. Man that guy's got some nerve, bonking his mom and then all this buddy-buddy stuff. It just makes Miles want to chew a whole in the ground and put himself in there.

Good. Crisis averted. Image of Kate a state of sexual abandon temporarily banished. Imagination is one thing, but in reality he doesn't think he could. Lara or no Lara. He just doesn't have that kind of nerve. Not with her. It fricking freaks him out like he is back to being his geeky virginal fifteen year old self again. She scares the big bejeezus out of him.

And fact is, he _**does**_ know about Lara and there is no going back on that, the thought of it makes him physically sick. There must be words for this, some diagnosis for the disgusting deviation, the sharing a girl with your mom. What is even more sickening is that although he is pissed, pissed as hell at Kate, it doesn't stop her from being the stuff that dreams are made off.

The fifty-eleventh time is a success or rather a half success. Kate finally manages to drop the trap door before the bear has time to buzz off again. Though Hugo is prepared for another failure on her side so he messes up and though his door is wedged open like a gapping guillotine the bear remains stubbornly in the space between the two doors. This half victory is enough for now, at least for Miles who can't contain himself. The tension released in a loud girlish squeal.

" Yahay! Yooohoo!"

A bit of jumping up and down on the spot, fist punching the sky like some fucking cheerleader before he catches himself, pulls back the mop slash pom-pom in his hand. He shrugs off the indignity of it all and gathers up the cleaning supplies. He eyes the growling beast a bit wearily. Ideally it would have felt better to have him safely behind two doors but he decides that it will have to do if they are ever going to finish the work. They still have three more cages, it's almost lunch and they have not even started on the first one.

" Lets get this freak show on the road," he mutters as he unhinges the big padlock on the gate.

The other two don't make a sign to have heard, not budging from their places on the hatch. Watching him curiously, no doubt. Hoping he will do all the fun stuff himself.

_And everything you've got to do yourself! Useless motherfuckers._

He fearlessly kicks the entry door open. _Pooh bear, here I come. _Then Hugo's sissy voice from up on the passageway:

" Ehem, Miles…Don't move or. Move. Or. Move very fast. I forget what you are supposed to do in these situations…."

" Just shut it Hugo-boy!"

" But….."

" Just pipe down or I'll scrub your innards out with this!" Menacing waggling of the mop in a random manner. Not even bothering to turn around.

" You might want to listen small-fry." Tiddly-winking Holly Hobbie this time, cool as a cucumber, still on top of her part of the hatch. " Or not. Suit yourself asshole."

_A growl._

And not the sensual _in the throws of passion_ kind of growl. – More the; _I'm gonna' feast on your skinny Encino ass_ variety.

" Run dude! For the love of god – RUN ! The bear is out!!!!"

* * *

.

.

And this is how the polar bears got out in my honest opinion….


	13. Altruism

So. Bear is out. – But never mind that. It is time to redeem poor Lara. Having shredded her reputation for the last 12 chapters….well…see what we can do. It might actually be too little and too late.

---

Oh hell - I'll just take her down - once and for all.

.

.

* * *

Altruism

* * *

" What she asked of me at the end of the day, Caligula would have blushed."

_- The Smiths; Heaven knows I'm Miserable Now -_

* * *

Lunch is nearing and Malcolm and Harold will kick up a fuss if she is a minute late. Barbara drags her feet. Some intentional slacking has been known to occur. If nothing else - just to ruffle their fastidious, nit-picky feathers a bit. _The finicky, stuck-up bastards._

She knows they mock her behind her back and they do nothing to hide their disdain in front of her. No amount of saliva in their soups will ever make up for that. She knows she is no Farrah Fawsett. - Still, the insults sting.

_Her cooking is infamous. _

And the Hydra men have honed the whining and moaning about the inedible mush she serves up to perfection. Turning it into a callous competition, a game of goading each other on with adjectives used in an ever-evolving cruelty. Only they are too arrogant and narcissistic to realize that it is a game to her too.

_Barbara can cook._

If there is anything she knows it is food. And it would hardly be surprising if anyone took a second's worth of their time to get to know the barest elementary details about her life.

_Lara did._

Having literally grown up at her father's acclaimed seafood restaurant. A cosy little neighbourhood resto, that her father, war-film affascinado, had christened "The Torpedo" and decorated with all sort of bric-a-brac, mostly second world-war submarine paraphernalia. Her whole childhood and her extremely awkward adolescence had been dedicated to Torpedo's exquisite ever-evolving menu. Her father, a formidable self taught genius in the culinary business, loved her to the extreme, as some would say (her mother most notably).

Barbara Brutch, princess of the sublime Torpedo kitchen had as much in common with the gaunt, lanky person sweating it out at the Hydra canteen as a barrel of lard with a little dainty vanilla èclair. Since birth, Barbara had been a hefty girl to put it kindly. Her considerable girth made manoeuvring the cramped quarters of her father's kitchen an impressive feat and the restaurant china in their pretty handmade cupboards would clatter as she clomped by. Her father, himself a man of substantial proportions and similar colourless appearance had been blind to this side of his daughter. For him, love was food. It was his only emotional outlet and his only way to express his endearing affection for his only daughter. And he did. - With devastating results.

This is how she grew up, ankles the width of 100 year old oak-trunks and ample hips, wide as the bus she rode home on. Disturbingly colourless and dull, a person no one looked twice at if not to taunt, to comment, to giggle at.

If the 'Torpedo' was a haven for Barbara, her home where her mother spent her time, was pure, unadulterated hell. The kitchen in their little semi-detached suburban home forever swarming with disapproving, thorny aunts and their lethally barbed tongues. And in spite of existing in this environment from birth, Barbara failed to develop any kind of armour against the vicious verbal assaults that would inevitably be slung at her. All she had was her father and the Torpedo.

Her father had kicked the bucket - abruptly - on Barbara's 21st birthday. Fried into a fizzle by a short-circuit caused by his own electrical fondue-pot. Barbara suddenly found herself alone and the sole owner of the Torpedo. And though she died a bit with this decision, she immediately sold it off to the highest bidder and left her home-town, never looking back.

After her father's passing, love was gone, and with that food. She ceased to eat. The pounds dropped and had this been a soap opera, she would have soon found herself gorgeously slim and surrounded by a haggle of suitors. In Barbara's case, this was not to be. In fact, she grew so gaunt, so emancipated that she effectively disappeared. She became invisible. Until Dharma. Until Lara.

Lara, the first person to have ever seen beyond the pale eyelashes, and her face the colour of a fish's underbelly. They had met in the kitchen, a shared interest for cooking brought them together.

She had shown her an interest that had made Barbara blush, unaccustomed to be visible as she was. And later, much later, that first kiss. Barbara's first kiss ever, innocently soft and warm and completely void of judgement. Just to be loved by any person was such an anomaly to Barbara that the fact that Lara was a woman did not even register. Only to Lara had Barbara managed to reveal the shameful legacy of her childhood that hung in loose flaps of skin on her stomach, her upper arms, everywhere on her scraggy body. And Lara had not laughed. She had cupped Barbara's cheeks in her hands and looked at her with such compassion, it shattered Barbara's spindly little heart. She had rubbed the tip of her nose against Barbara the Eskimo-way and had said in her old fashioned manner of speech:

" You _**are**_ beautiful. Never shall you doubt it Barbara."

And after Mr. Chang found out and Barbara was shipped off to Hydra, these words, repeated softy in her mind with Lara's imagined voice, gave her a courage she had never before possessed.

_Rebellion was born from this. _

A covert mutiny carried out under the ingenuous cover of food. A silent uprising that became an art form to her, a true testament to her virtuosity as a chef. She became an connoisseur, a master at making the most atrocious effort look like an innocent mistake, a simple inability to cook. She would habitually scrutinize recipes trying to find the precise angle and potential for failure. _Exactly what would make this dish just revolting enough? _Perhaps a hint of vinegar? Too much salt? No salt? A hint of fish stock in the fruit pudding? Barbara's creativity knows no limits.

* * *

Barbara glances swiftly out through the kitchen window just as she adds the finishing touches to her kidney pie. She almost drops the strip of pie dough in her hand.

_Lara._

And it takes more than a moment of pause to digest that it isn't a figment of her imagination. It really is Lara, walking determinedly towards the building, carrying her little baby boy and a suitcase. Barbara lets go of the dough strip and wiping her floury hands on her apron she runs out to greet her. _Imagine that. Lara here. _Her happiness, dizzying. They embrace each other. Barbara giving both Lara and her baby a big stiff hug between her sticklike upper limbs.

" Lara. Lara. What are you doing here?" She can hardly speak. Lara. Beautiful Lara, kinder than an angel. Here on Hydra.

" Your boy," she breathes." I knew he'd be gorgeous Lara." And he is. His eyes shut, sleeping in spite of the commotion around him. Perhaps three or four months old. Funny little round face, apple-cheeked and with quizzical arched eyebrows.

" Barbara. I don't know. What to do." Her speech pattern cut up by breathlessness. Barbara notices the deep circles engraved under her tired eyes. "Pierre has lost his mind! He told me to get off the island."

" What are you talking about?"

" Came by, all bleary eyed and wild, shouting at me that I have to take Miles and get away. I will leave with the submarine tomorrow. I think he knows, he found out there is someone else." Her normally calm and level-headed Lara. She looks fraught and distressed up close. Barbara gestures to Lara to take a seat on the cement steps outside the building. She reaches to take the luggage off her depositing it down by their feet. Lara quietly shifts the baby in her arms as they settle down next to each other.

" So does he know? Did you finally tell Phil yet?" She nods towards the infant with the freakishly grown-up eyebrows that renders him a slightly arrogant and annoyed appearance. Wildly unsuitable for a baby. The baby stirs, perhaps feeling the burning of her judgemental eyes on him. He turns his face towards his mother's chest, rooting sluggishly in his sleep.

Lara combs the long nervous fingers of her free hand through her shoulder length black hair and looks distractedly away across the yard.

" No. Oh no. Phil isn't fit to be a father. An idiot can see that. All pent up rage and that constant hostility he carries around like a souvenir. No, I'll never tell him."

"But what about Pierre? Doesn't he suspect? I mean, clearly he has something of Phil in him. Look at those eyebrows Lara!" Barbara can't help feeling frustrated with Lara. It isn't right.

" Yes, but look Barbara, just look at him. You can hardly see any European features right? Looks pretty Chinese right?! Doesn't he?" She points pleased as cake to the baby's nose.

Her eager eyes on Barbara - waiting for her agreement, her approval.

Barbara sighs. She can but agree. Lara is one of those people that will always land on her feet, regardless of what altitude you chuck her down from. She always has a fool's luck.

" Pierre never suspected anything," she continues smugly, like she has pulled off some clever trick. " I think he was just so relieved about the baby, the convention of it… He'd have accepted a kitten, had I brought it home and presented it as ours. Beside, Phil is Uzbeki or something of the sort and that's almost Asian, isn't it?"

She smiles at little Miles, who is opening and closing his chubby little fists just below her chin.

" Good thing you didn't," Barbara mutters and almost wishes little Miles would punch his mother instead. She loves Lara like no one else but she doesn't approve of this, of passing a kid on as someone else's. Poor Phil. He is a miserable son of a bitch but he doesn't deserve this. Not in Barbara's honest opinion.

" As Chinese as a bowl of dumplings," she twitters on and Barbara can just nod in agreement and feel sorry for the poor little sod.

" Yes Lara, he looks a lot like you."

" So, this is really goodbye for us," Lara's lashes flutter slightly as she speaks. "I'll be getting on that sub tomorrow but. But he…He….I can't leave without him…." Lara's voice trails off.

Him? Barbara's mind is blank. Miles in her arms so who is she talking about?

" Hugo, Hugo Reyes. Juliet told me I might find him here. Is he here Barbara? Tell me he is here!" Lara grasps Barbara's arms so hard it almost hurts.

Oh. Oh, the fat guy. Him? So this guy Pierre think she is having a fling with – he does exist. It has been a long time since she felt _**like that**_for Lara but she still worries about her and her inability to control her impulses. But fat guy? Really?….And then, she thinks: _why not_? Lara has a tendency not to judge the book by its cover. So yes, why not Hugo? Actually it makes perfect sense. Barbara has to smile.

" Still saving lost souls then Lara?" she says and clutches her hand in her own. " So this new guy, he seems like a good guy. I am actually a little relieved that it wasn't one of the other two misfits that LaFleur packed on us. Though that angry Asian guy might actually be right up your alley – a pity project if I've ever seen one. You always did have a weakness for the hopeless ones didn't you?"

" What?…" momentarily distracted, Lara's head spins her head around to look, for him , one might assume. Then her attention returns to Barbara and she dispatches her sparkling beautiful smile back at her." Oh, yes, one might say that I guess."

" So is it serious?"

" Yes. Yes, definitely. Barb, I think this is it. Hugo is a beautiful person"

" Well then Lara, I think you'll find your prince charming behind there, scrubbing out the bear cages." She says lightly, and though it hurts, to give Lara away to someone else she knows she will be alright.

Just as the two of them gets up from their spots on the steps, all hell breaks loose from across the yard. Screaming and hysterical yelling, rising from beyond the main barrack.

The fat guy rounds the corner, his big heavy feet drumming the ground like a bulldozer. He heaves with the strain of it, sweat soaking through the armpits and the chest of his overalls. His corkscrews flapping up and down like the wings on an extraordinarily weird bird.

" Bear's out!!! The bear's made off!!!"

He stops. Mouth round and babyish set in a little open circle.

" Lara?!"

.

* * *

So is it just me gone totally bananas – or is there some subtle similarities between Phil and Miles – the gloriousness of their innate crabbiness?

No? No? Really no ?

Ha, nope, didn't think so. But still - this is my story – and I have just made Phil a daddy.


	14. Hedonism

**So what happened to the stupid bear? Did it finally put all of us out of our misery and end this freaky fable of no return? **

**Come along then. As our story continues Kate gets a little bit (**_**ehem**_**) frisky , from all the bear hunting jungle –traipsing. And Miles – well – not so much.**

* * *

Hedonism

* * *

"Complete masculinity and stupidity are often indistinguishable"

Henry Louis Mencken –

* * *

.

So. Really.

The blame for this Herculean screw up should logically have gone to the clutz who didn't lock the trap door properly.

Yes?

So Barbara's ludicrous rationalization behind sending him trudging knee deep in mud through the frigging spine-chilling jungle is obviously faulty? Yes? What with being girded out merely with a pathetically flimsy tazer and a toy-sized dart gun – clearly faulty. Yes? Granted, the true culprit is traipsing along a few paces behind him, infuriatingly zippy and sunny, jauntily swinging her own dart gun like it is a freaking brass band baton. Curly long hair bouncing off her back as she walks with an exasperatingly arousing rhythm of her janitor clad narrow hips. She is finally in her true element.

Flipping girl scout.

" So what's with you and Lara? You got a thing for her huh?"

Miles stomps on – refusing to answer – Silently extending his middle finger to her behind his back.

"Ooooh," she mocks wiggling her head sideways like a fucking Bollywood dance number. " Grouchy, are we?

Honestly. He isn't quite sure what he'd do if he were to actually find the bloodthirsty beast. And frankly he finds it exceptionally taxing to keep his mind on the game. The humming and zumming in his mind outclassing the noise of the jungle by a zillion decibels.

While Barb the boss handed out the hamster sized assault weaponry – the token finally dropped. It was to put it in a cliché; like the light had suddenly been turned on. And he had immediately wanted to turn it off. No – more violently – to shoot the fucking light bulb into sharp little shrapnel.

Barbara. That Barbara.

No.

It can't be.

But has do be.

Barbara. The Barbara that seduces mom to the brink of breaking up the family. The Barbara that almost had his father in tears. That Barbara. And then the frightening unlikely reality of this Barbara – as sensual and alluring as a hemorrhoid cream smeared across a plank.

No. Impossible.

And there and then. He had had his mother's three conquests (or three of them more likely) lined up in front of him and at first he hadn't been able to make sense of it. Then, as he started walking towards the direction of the bears frigging escape route, with Kate like a frolicking drooling puppy in his tow, the image had started to emerge out of the foggy facts. He had felt like slapping himself on the forehead, though he didn't since he was carrying the tazer and honestly he has no idea how to work the bloody thing.

Lara is no jezebel. No fucking Scarlet Letter. No slapper.

She is a freaking social worker!

And as soon as his mind had processed that thought he had been forced to recognize the undeniable truth in it.

She is a social worker - and not in the sense you call working girls social workers - no, she is an honest to god fricking saint. You line up her " conquests" and you find the three most pitiful, needy souls on the whole damn island. Oh and Roger Linus not to be forgotten – hell, had that continued on - he might have ended up the stepbrother of little bug-eyed Ben.

Lara had showed them all a little bit of compassion – oh – (and Miles mind is practically spinning in ultra rapid motion now) they had probably interpreted it to mean something else. These fucked-up people, Lara had managed to see past their less than desirable exteriors and in to their needy little worm eaten hearts.

It fucking warms Miles to his shallow core just to think about it.

Though Kate isn't exactly a butt ugly. The theory is a bit shaky on this detail but she is needy as hell and fucked up beyond all doubt. Yeah. So that is it.

Mom. A saint.

* * *

They keep going. Through the dense fecund vegetation of the island. They push their way through it, branches swaying from side to side and lashing across their faces as they struggle on. It is exhausting. And Miles is frightened out of his pants thinking of all the creepy crawlies and snakes that probably lurk there. Just thinking of it makes his entire body itch. He shudders and tries to block it all out. Kate is fucking singing behind him. Singing! She is obviously completely and utterly tone deaf to boot. Wow, she really is getting into the groove of the 70's. He is guessing from the lyrics that it is Ziggy Stardust, but hell, it might as well have been the God Save the Queen from the sound of it. She doesn't hit one tone right.

Fucking torture.

"Stop swinging that thing! You make me nervous," he snips dryly. She looks happy to have gotten under his skin and dangles it even more buoyantly but blissfully stops her ghastly singing.

" What? This old thing? Harmless I tell you. Bet it couldn't hurt a fly," she smiles at him like he is the fricking sun. Or the sun god Ra at the least. The red scarf long since shed and bound around her neck like the freaking Communist Red Guard.

Wah, and Chairman Mao would have loved to have her in his propaganda flics. Smiling like an alligator, showing off every single one of her 133 pointy teeth. He'd probably have had her waving a huge red flag in triumph over the superiority of the communist system. Red healthy shine to her cheeks. Naughty freckles glimmering in the sparkling light filtered through the emerald green canopy above. There is something there. Something that this insane excursion has awakened. He recognizes it in her newfound Conan the Barbarian stride as they push on.

" Still, I'd much rather you pointed it elsewhere."

Shit. She's hot. Even the beads of perspiration glittering on her upper lip are hot.

"Sure thing Miles! " she quips but as far as he can see, makes absolutely no effort to control herself. Rather making sure to studiously waggle it even more sloppily. Tip of tongue visible between her teeth as he steals a quick glance. He wishes she'd walk in front of him. It is freaking nerve wrecking to have her, armed to boot, trotting along behind him. Probably ogling his ass - as ususal.

They are near the beach front now, walking on in relative silence. Only some truly disturbing whistling from the Red Guard behind him. The theme from Dr. Zivago… Was there a bear somewhere in there ? Miles is totally convinced that she is doing it only to irk him some more. Fucking girl seems to thrive off it. Well. He won't oblige. He is cool. Miles is always cool and smooth and …..She rudely cut's off his own little private pep talk in his head with a rather shrill:

" Miles!!"

It makes his heart jump up and position itself in his narrow throat for some reason. Thump, thump, thump.

"What now? " he says pissily in order to cover for the excitement he feels at the change of her tone.

" Look there. Over there!" she hisses.

"Where?" Annoyed now. Whatever he expected her to say it was far more exciting than this.

"There!" she bursts out impatiently, pointing with the dart gun. And as he turn his head to follow the direction in which she is pointing:

SWISH!

A razor-sharp, jagged pain searing through what seems to be his left buttock.

"Oops! Oh sorry! So sorry - got excited! So sorry Miles!!!"

Oh fuck me Betty he thinks as he falls like timber towards a black fluffy cloud of darkness. Face down.

Oblivion.

Nullity.

* * *

"Miles! Miles! Wake up!"

He senses someone pulling at his sleeve, and he thinks: don't! Leave me here. It's nice and soft and feathery here. Mmm. Bees and birds going chirp chirp chirp.

Someone is lightly slapping his cheek. Repeatedly - and it pisses him off enough to attempt opening his eyes.

" Son of a bitch. Cut it out!"

He wedges open one eye. It seems to take all the energy he's got, just that one eye.

Where am I?

" Wake up Miles, bear got away. It took off across the strait - towards the mainland. Who knew polar bears could swim huh?!"

He sees her in what seems to be a fisheye lens. Man – it isn't a pretty sight to wake up to. Her ginormous front teeth bared in a mega-sized guilty half smile. He can't keep his eyelids from sliding shut for the life of him.

" Yeah, who fucking knew…" he mumbles. Caring very little in deed about the propensity of swimming among any arctic mammals at all. Especially now. With her fingers sweeping his forehead.

" Sorry. I didn't mean to shoot you. Just went off!" she tries to justify herself.

Cool light little fingertips against his own clammy skin, tracing his hairline, brushing the hair upwards.

Purr.

He swears, it has him purring like a fucking kitten. Oh hell. Let her feel guilty for a little while longer. He basks in the unexpected attention. Until. Her perfect lips, soft and humid like raspberries in milk, flick across his cheek. He can smell her.

Stop! You crazy woman. Get a hold of yourself!

" You shot me!" he squeaks, vainly trying to ward her off with his hands.

" Sorry, " she says simply and what the heck do you say to that? She dodges his hands deftly and doesn't let him push her away. She is kneeling on the muddy ground, covered by decaying leafs and twigs and branches that poke him in the back as he lies there. Weak as a newborn duckling, still unable to rise since he hasn't yet regained sensation in his legs. Her hands wanders in behind his head, fingers snaking their way to the nape. He can feel the goose-bumps popping up in the wake of her drifting finger. The way she leans over him, gives him a heart stopping view inside the opening of her jumpsuit, zipped down just so.

" What do you think you're doing, " he says and it comes out exactly as bitchily as he had intended. This has to be nipped in the bud. He can't. Won't.

" Your fault Miles." She shrugs and looks at him in a way that brings a flush of heat to his cheeks. Fuck – he hopes she can't tell. Cool it Miles. Just a girl.

" My fault? You drugged me with bear dope. How is it my fault?! He swats at her hands trying to get her to stop doing that, whatever the hell she is doing with the hairs on his neck. Ah – and it feels so good. It is abnormal. It isn't right!

She zooms in on him. Face too close to his. He can see every pore on her skin, the texture of her lips, open just so. Eyes heavy lidded and sumptious and he can't freaking believe she is looking at him!

" What's the deal with Lara, Miles?"

Hey. Give a guy a chance! It comes out of nowhere. But wait a minute…. Is that jealousy? The idea thrills him more than he is willing to admit. Shouldn't tell her. Shouldn't. But god! Her fingers in his hair, his neck and now moving over out. Marking out his cheekbones, stroking his temples in small soft circles. It makes his palm sweat and the hair on the scruff of his neck waver like grass in the wind.

" She is my freakin' mother!" he blurts out.

She stops. Oh god. Don't stop.

She sits up rigidly. Quickly pulling her hands back in as if she has suddenly woken up and realised that he is not a dream man at all but a big fat salad-killing slug sprawled out uselessly on the jungle floor. As if she is hoping he will miraculously just slide off into the sunset, leaving nothing but a slimy trail behind.

" But. But….Lara's baby?"

He nods the best he can but if feels like something is impaling him from below.

" So that's you?"

"Yes Einstein, it is me."

" Oh, no no no. So I kissed your mom?!"

" Yep."

" Oh Christ ." She lets out a little sigh that says bugger it all. But then a shrug, that is so tiny and unremarkable that he nearly misses it and the smile too, that is slowly creeping back, lightening up her green insane eyes.

" So you see how this – the you and me – is a bit….icky? He says. Reasonably. Because that is who he is: very reasonable Miles.

" Oh yeah?" The glimmer of the smile turned on in full storm-trouper mode force. Shit those teeth are large and white. Almost fucking blinding him. He has to put up the back of his hand to shield his unprotected vision. That and those lips stretching across the entire bottom half of her face. It is outrageous.

" So you and me…not happening?" He can't see her but he can literally hear the enormous shit-eating grin in her voice.

"No, you got that right. No. Not happening." Happy that she seems to accept it for what it is. Just the way it has to be. Reasonably.

" So we're not on. You and me…no?" Her voice tickles him down to his toes or perhaps he is regaining his sensation finally after the near fucking spinal puncture she administered.

" Yep. This ain't on!. No man. Not gonna happen." But Miles is paralysed – though more in psyche than body as she moves her quick little monkey hands, nimbly slipping down the zipper of his overalls.

" Tsst!" she tuts. Who the hell does that!? I will not be ignored! She pays him no mind.

" But you and my mom. We can't!"

" Oh suck it up Miles!"

" But you drugged me…This is so wrong!

" Tough!"

"But…."

" Just shut up Miles."

Oh to hell with it all. - Miles moral compass spontaneously combusts as she tugs down the upper part of his overalls. I will blame the drugs. No one can hold me accountable. I've been shot up to the eyeballs with mega strong bear barbitals. I mean, who could be reasonable under these extreme circumstances?

Eeek!

" What are you doing?"! No no no you won't, - you brazen hussy!"

" Stop being such a baby Miles," she giggles, and he watches aghast as she flings his sturdy, prudishly white Dharma issue underwear up in a tree somewhere. Her hands on him.

Mmmm. Not half bad. He protests some more, just for good measure, but mmmm.

But then, like a ghostly head on a silver platter, out of nowhere he imagines LaFleur's ugly mug floating in the air above him. Tut-tuting too at Miles' lack of prowess. Hell.

Uh-u. No come on now little Miles. You can do this little buddy. Don't let me down. Not now. Not with her. She is just a chick. Gorgeous fucking chick and – no – it isn't working.

It is Kate.

Humiliation overload.

" Eh. What's wrong Miles? Is it me?"

Quick. Divert! Blame it on, eh, bear dope.

" No it's not you." Sulking in defence. Chop-chop, hastily drawing the overalls back on. Modest underwear hanging high up on a branch above - waving tauntingly in the breeze.

She sits there on the sodden ground looking at him dumbfounded. He turns his back on her as he zips up. Funny, the legs seem to work fine now, though a moment ago, he could have swore he was completely incapacitated.

" So what then? You're not attracted to me? Is that it?" She sounds like a hurt little girl and seems to grasps for straws. Any straws. He hears her getting up. " Is it because of Lara?"

" No hell, no, he mutters as he bends to pick up his dart gun, thinking briefly that he has a newfound respect for it. " It's LaFleur. Can't do it thinking of him."

Yeah. The f-ing asshole. Fuck him and his fucking powers to bug him from miles away.

And then, pronto, nippy-swift as a warhead-heat-seeking missile, she grabs his sleeve, twists him around in one seamless sinuous motion and punches him. Lickety-split, solar plexus-making you vomit blood, kind of blow.

Hell - that girl's got some knuckles on her. Though he is sort of grateful she didn't aim at the face like every-frigging-body else. Sparing his already hideously disfigured features.

"Why Miles? Why did you have to go and kiss me like that? Like in the shower?" Her eyes large, alarmingly green and demented. Miles hangs forward, palms on his thighs, trying to pull a normal gulp of air out of his punched out torso.

" Not cool!"she continues, seemingly on a roll. "And Sawyer of all people. Seriously Miles, you could have just told me that you're gay."

* * *

I know I should wrap it all up. Enough, enough of this crap but it is just so much fun to write them all down a big black hole. Promise I am almost done though, I have 3 or 4 more chapters top to wrap it up..

----


	15. Lovesick

**As much else in this fic, the polar bear hunting mission was a complete flop. Miles got darted in the ass and mauled by Kate, rather to his delight before Sawyer's manly-man face appeared, putting a damper on things. So; how long will Miles continue to get screwed rather than laid? Disaster is looming in the horizon….. Someone is not feeling well…**

**Lovesick**

* * *

"_**However, never daunted, I will cope with adversity in my traditional manner ... sulking and nausea."**_

**- Tom K. Ryan -**

* * *

.

_Damn._

Why is it that all the good ones are either taken or gay?

Seriously - always. Hot as hell - gay as a cabaret.

Damn.

She still can't quite believe it. Totally out of the blue – she hadn't seen that one coming - not in a million years.

He leads the way, sashaying along a few paces in front of her as if equipped with his very own internal GPS. He is clearly absolutely clueless as to where he is heading. They have walked in circles for the last hour and by now they have reached the open high planes for the third time. He is completely off track – and hundred percent unaware of it - but she isn't about to correct him. He could just ask.

Hydra is a paltry little island and you can't stay lost for very long even if you try – which leaves Kate to suspect that he might just not be eager to go back and explain to the Capo why they've failed to dart the bear. And earnestly; she is enjoying the view much too much to say anything.

No harm in that right?

His lean, velvety neck, where whiskey-cream skin meets the ragged black hair, sticking up in tufts at the back of his head. Wonders if he cuts it with a pair of nail scissors? It sure looks like it – or perhaps a pair of shears? She's seen better haircuts on sheep. But she still finds it irresistible that he can look like a goat chewed him over and still keep that arrogant little strut going. The hair on top of his head is slicked in a swaying little horn.

Hah. How suitable.

But the neck – shiny from perspiration – little minute rivers of sweat traveling down to the collar. The long sensual curvature upwards, towards the rounded back of his skull. Tense long sinewy muscles moving under the skin as he moves, uptight and edgy. Skin that shimmers, amber and caramel where the sun's rays beats down. She revels in it – the childish curve at the nape of his head - always had a weakness for that spot.

There is a dark patch from perspiration between the shoulder blades of his overalls. She can hear him huffing and puffing in front of her from the exertion. But he doesn't slow down. Doesn't turn to check if she's keeping up with him. In any event – she is pleased as punch that he doesn't. This is the part she really enjoys. The way the coarse fabric wrinkles and bunches up around his buttocks as he stomps testily - in the opposite direction of the Hydra station. She thinks with glee of the modest white underpants still up in that tree swaying in the rustle of the wind. And him, grumpy and bitchy in front of her, and undeniably bare-assed under that jumpsuit.

Um-mmmm.

It's so, well - just so. He is scrumptious – from cow-licked top to muddy toes. Rumpled, wrinkled and imperfect. Something surges inside of her and she refused to look closely at it. Could just be lust. Yeah, probably. Stupid crush.

Oh hell. – Gay or not. One can look right?

Uhu.

Crap, she's been caught.

Without warning he jerks his head halfway round. Like some a sniper that already knows where his target will strike, his superbly cranky scowl that hits her straight in the stomach like machine gun fire. She notices that the purple around his eyes is fading into a greenish yellow on some spots. Ha - delightful!

"Stop ogling my ass!"

"Am not!"

She pulls a nervous, exaggeratedly toothy smile, but he doesn't return it. Guess he is still pissed about getting thumped on the nose for jumping out of the closet. Kate finds herself exhaling suddenly as he spins his face forward again. She feels a little bad for hitting him – though seriously; who wouldn't?! He has mostly himself to blame for that one. He is such a tease and, um, really there would have been harsher words fore someone like that had he been a woman.

He could have given her a fair warming before she went through all the trouble of falling in…darn it…of falling, eh; of removing those stupid Dharma bloomers.

She can't quite make up her mind about this part. Since honestly, the image etched on her cornea of him, his honey colored skin. Black eyes round in surprise and his beautifully proportioned lean limbs against the green of the forest floor - almost made it worth the humiliation that followed.

The look on him as she had brashly nudged her hands inside the opening of the jumpsuit. She doesn't really know where she got the nerve. But she could have sworn he wanted it. The astonished expression on his ugly Siamese cat face – his breathing; ridiculously off beat. She could have sworn.

The initial mortifying shock of his rejection has settled down a smidgen. It might sting a tad but one thing is becoming increasingly clear as she reconsider the existing evidence of the last few days. The shower, the kiss, all of it.

The LaFleur-Sawyer thing – nope - not entirely buying it.

She smiles to herself walking there behind him. Alright, if that's the way it is -hah – two can play that game.

* * *

He feels utterly deflated.

Fucking LaFleur.

She had allowed him to lead them in a blind mole race crisscross across the island before she finally piped up and within fifteen minutes they were back at the station. A neat little promenade, after gallivanting around the whole flipping Hydra all fricking day long. And she hadn't even broken a sweat. He is dead sure that she let him get them lost on purpose.

Her evil grin behind his back; proof enough.

It is already late afternoon. Not that the air is any cooler, but he's found his way down to the dock in a vain attempt at chilling off a little bit. He sits wiggling his toes, airing his poor blistered feet, just short of reaching the surface of the water. He has torn his stinking soggy boots off and placed them next to him on the narrow wooden pier where the Pala ferry normally docks.

She had come on to him. To him!

And how! Her hands had been all over him and there was no mistaking that she'd wanted him. He'd never even thought it'd be possible to shed a Dharma overall that quick.

Him!

And where are his freaking' cojones when he needs them?

Do they step up?

Nope. They are fucking out somewhere square dancing or knitting or doing some other manly stuff. Useless.

Oh hell - he's really done it now. He'd had one chance and he'd blown it to smithereens. The floorboards of the pier bounce slightly when someone steps on it jauntily, someone's happy, untroubled footsteps approaching him. He groans when he looks up to find Hugo standing next to him.

" Hi! You're back! Thought Kate might have fed you to the bears dude!"

" Yeah, well she didn't…" he grumbles, rubbing his sore ankles. Though – truth is -she had almost devoured him. If only it weren't for that damn LaFleur. Uhum.

"So no luck with catching it huh?"

Hugo stands next to him – weighing back and forward on his feet, looking over the strait towards the main island. He is in civilian clothes and Miles realizes that he likes him like this. Big floral hippie shirt billowing in the wind from the sea. Happy smile painted all across his chubby face.

" Nah. Got away. Swam off the island actually." he says looking away, shrugging like it happens all the time. You loose a polar bear or two – no big deal.

" Yeah – that makes sense. Gotta' get to the mainland I guess so that we Oceanics can shoot it or it's offspring in 2004. - Sawyer did ya know, like just after we crashed or so."

" Yeah. Of course he did," Miles scoffs. He knows it isn't Hugo's fault but oh fucking hell! There is really no escaping him and his damn heroic sun-kissed biceps. Yep. Fucking perfect.

" You bet dude! Kate was really impressed by that – I reckon that's when it all started. Whatever happened, happened right? So where is she?" Hugo picks something from his front teeth and looks around like her head might pop up from under the pier at any moment.

"Who?" Miles answers with badly affected pretence. Damn Hugo. Nosiest man alive on earth in all possible time dimensions.

"Kate of course!"

Is that Hugo laughing at him? Miles studies him suspiciously from the corner of his eye, a soft chuckle that bubbles up from Hugo's abundant belly. Miles scratches his hair in a manner that he imagines nonchalant enough to throw Hugo off the scent.

" Oh, guess she is back there saying goodbye to Mo…. I mean …Lara."

" So, how are we…you and me dude - are we cool? You ok about me and Lara man? 'Cause this is for real, we're really doing this - getting off the island and all. "

"Yeah, yeah – fucking delighted, " Miles says dryly. "Just be a good dad to that little ankle-biter alright!"

" You kidding!? I frigging love that weird little dude. And Lara and me – it's love – I'd do anything for her man. Anything. I just want to be with her – all of the time you know. She just makes me feel – complete. You really ought to give it a go dude – isn't anything stronger than love. And stop rolling your eyes! You know you are so into her – it's totally obvious I can totally tell. Could be love man – could be!"

Hugo's wiggling eyebrows are freaking him out. He feels his stomach turning. There is something here. Something that just makes him sick to his stomach. He can't take any more of the Hugo Reyes' love propaganda indoctrination.

" Stop it for fucks sake! You're making me nauseous man."

With that, Miles abruptly shoots up into a standing position and like a large human tap he leans forward in an upside down L shape and throws up violently. Hands on his thighs for support and his whole upper body quivering with the forceful spasms. He manages tremblingly to unbend his L-shaped body into a weak and shivering bow.

" Dude. You're puking all over the place!"

"You don't say!?" he shrieks before slanting forward to hurl some more. Sarcasm and puking makes for strange companions. He stands up shakily. A bad imitation of Homo Erectus tossing his cookies

" Man, I don't feel well at all." He shivers, taking on a sickly green sheen and his jaw hangs wide open like a large oval.

Love.

His hands clasping the sides of his head – he knows he must look like a perfect parody of Edvard Munch's The Scream – but he doesn't give a shit.

It's awful! Shit oh shit oh shit!!

"Fuck Hugo! I think it's fucking serious."

He pukes some more. Feeling completely schnokered by the realization slowly taking shape. No. How did this happen? All he wanted was to make out with a hot chick – the only one available that hadn't reached the age of consent prior to World War II. It has him gnashing his teeth.

Fuck! It isn't fair.

Hugo looks genuinely vexed – as if it might be something contagious or infectious.

" Wow. That doesn't look good Miles. Maybe you should get back to the barracks. Have the medics check you out. You might have caught something…"

"No you schmuck!" Miles dry-heaves producing a peculiar high-pitched squeak like a cat coughing up hairballs. "It's Kate!"

There. He's said it. The sky hadn't collapsed. Time hadn't stopped.

"Oh? Oh… Oooh, I get it. Yeah, yeah dude, totally! I remember back at the barracks, she did that. She poisoned Michael over that whole raft thingy. Unbelievable dude – but true, I tell you, you've got a live one there..." Hugo waggles his index finger in front of Miles face as he goes on and on and on…. "So what was it? What did she slip you?"

Miles shoves Hugo's large annoying hand out of his face before heaving some more. Nothing comes up really, just some green stuff….gall or some other gross internal sludge. Hugo shudders demonstratively. Obviously not fond of bodily fluids.

" No! No…" Miles croaks, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, chin resting on his chest and the rest is so flipping ear-splitting and shrill it nearly makes Hugo take a tumble off the pier.

" No. You stupid fuck….. I think I'm in love - you fucking moron!!!"

* * *

.

So there –

I am not ashamed to admit that the only red thread in this story is pretty much whether Miles will ever get it on or not…yes, I'm deep like that. I realize that it takes an outrageous level of geekdom to write a 15+ chapter story of someone trying (unsuccessfully) to get laid. I am not in denial ( a little perhaps) but I promise that it's almost over…promise. Wrapping up, really am, soon. Writing Miles is just really, really, really addictive.

Reviews make me giddy – in a good way..


	16. Shuck and jive

_So Miles is still faking gay rather than owning up to his inadequacies. He realizes that this newfound identity might actually bring some unexpected perks. He can be Kate's new pet and wear ridiculously tight t-shirts. Kate's not quite as happy with the whole coming-out thingy. But they've got better things to worry about: Hydra is quickly filling up with the hoi-polloi riffraff of the main island and some astonishingly 'wrong' hook ups have obviously taken place. And the thing is: I have no idea why – it's sick really - they just did_…..

_._

.

* * *

**Shuck and jive with it**

* * *

" _A little inaccuracy sometimes saves tons of explanation." _

**- Saki (1870 - 1916)**, _"The Square Egg", 1924_ ' -

* * *

.

It's sickening. They've spent twenty minutes apart – tops - and already she feels her mouth go dry and her dumb heart thump harder at the thought of him. She's got to shake this absurd infatuation somehow - shuck and jive with it in some way.

_But there he is._

Kate spots him from afar, leaning limply forward over the edge of the quay. Someone large in a flowery gaudy shirt seems to hold on to him while slapping him on his back – somewhat comfortingly. Hugo - of course. As she gets nearer to the dock, she sees Miles drooping down like a large lump of Jell-O', spreading himself thin on the wooden pier. Naked feet dangling over the side, head lolling slightly. Hugo lets go of him, placing a final pat on top of his dishevelled hair and meets her halfway down the embankment.

"What's wrong with the asshole?" She indicates the slouching wreck of a man with an indifferent cock of her head. In hope of affecting a suitably pissed-off non-obsessed platonic friend.

"Asshole's in love.." Hugo beams and makes a corny thumbs up sign with both hands as he pushes by her on the narrow stretch. "Toodeloo," he quips behind her like some middle aged English housewife and takes off down the dock - bouncing jollier than Tigger on mattress springs. Making Kate feel a thousand year old.

As she lets the words sink in something breaks in her. She looks at his messy hair, the peaks and pikes sticking up all over. She wants to submerge her nose in the crevice of his neck,…push her hands inside the collar and breathe in, no immerse herself in him.

_Fuck it all._

_Guess she was wrong after all._

_In love…. imagine that._

Damn Sawyer. Always him – all goody goody now -happy as a goldfish with the damn golden Juliet in his little mundane goldfish bowl. Completely oblivious to all the poor suckers falling for him left and right.

She sinks down next to Miles, hesitates for a second before she places a hand on his arm, in a clumsy attempt at consoling him. _Shit._

"That true Miles? You're in love?"

He looks awful. Eyebrow set in an odd angle for him. That arrogant fuck-off mode replaced by as sloping pathetic line. Shoulders slumped, looking up at her - bewildered. Searching her eyes, like he doesn't know what's up or down.

"Yep. Pretty much," he says simply and she finds that she really misses his snarkiness. Damn Sawyer to hell and back for doing this.

She knows what it's like. She's been there too. In fact, a large part of the pity she feels for him in this instant is about her too. _Damn Sawyer! Always Sawyer._ With his blond Adonis looks and the swagger and the confidence. That someone as cool and aloof as Miles could be taken in with that crap. Though come to think of it -they do have certain similarities.

"Oh no, no, no Miles…. " she says as her heart aches for him. "Oh no, I'm so sorry. But he is as straight as they come. I can vouch for it….In fact I could _vouch_ a lot."

* * *

_What the fuck?!!!_

He doesn't want any fucking vouching for Jimmy-boy's skills. _Hell no! _It's grotesque enough as it is. Her thinking he's hung up on that big Fabio wanna'-be.

_This is surreal._

Why the heck can't he tell her as it is? He almost did – he'd tried. At the _"That true Miles?"_ Her green eyes on him and he had answered truthfully and then the last stuff….her automatically assuming he has the hots for LaFleur.

_What the hell. But sure. Yep._

It is a bit disturbing that she so readily accepts this newly revealed queerness as a given fact. Really? Not that being gay should be anything unbecoming – quite the opposite actually. But it is a tad counterproductive to getting it on with the hottest chick in this timeline.

Miles quickly does the math in his head. He puts the pros on one side and the cons on the other and anyway he turns it around - revealing that she is the object of his affections (_and how!_) and fessing up to the Lafleur-induced impotence seems to be an infinitely worse option than death.

So he lets the notion rest there. Sinking in firmly. If he's got to be gay. Then so be it. Well it just seems too good an explanation to bother correcting it. He'll be the frigging _awesomest_ gay, this side of the equator. Her deadly cool, hip awesomely stylish (_oh well..)_ handsome BGF; _best gay friend_. For a moment he imagines himself as her new hip accessory – a bit like a ridiculously small Chihuahua lugged around in a designer bag. He can wear preposterously tight t-shirts and pierce his navel – and nobody would dare to lift an eyebrow. She'd keep him near. Always.

_There are worse things that could happen….._

She could doubt his manliness… Oh wait a minute….She does already!

_Oh fuck. He can't think straight._

Her hand on his arm – he can't get enough air. Warm little fingers stroking the naked skin just below the sleeve. Oh sweet Jayzus! He can feel goose bumps popping up in the backwater of her touch. Giving him away. Shit, he can't keep this together a second longer – the nausea wells up.

"Listen Kate - unless you want me to puke in front of you – you better remove your hand."

He swallows hard – making a sound like some goofy cartoon character. And just as he turns to look out over the water, he spots something moving towards them. A little motor boat, he realizes as it gets closer. With a few people in it. Three persons clearly discernible by now, approaching the dock. They catch Kate's interest too.

"See that Miles? Who's that in the boat?"

_Oh mercy._

He squints to make them out, lifting his hand to scratch his hair, suspended there, like some kind of looser-salute. _Oh._ And he shouldn't be surprised by anything anymore. Still he can't help it.

"Oh hell. Is that who I think it is?...." Kate is the one who says it but frankly she took the words right out of his mouth.

It's definitely Yin in the front, then a blond long hair,…Juliet? And Phil at the rear - steering the boat in a shattering speed towards the pier. Jules blond head appears first as she hoists herself up with the grace of a ballerina. Then Jin, and last a scowling but curiously subdued Phil, clambering up like a one-legged spastic crab.

"Hi there Miles….. Kate." Juliet bestows them both with a little dignified tip of her regal head before they can think of anything to say. They just sit there like two idiots, gawking at the new arrivals. Heads turned backwards in a truly uncomfortable angle.

_Honestly._

He can't say he is thrilled to see anyone of them. But the real shock hits him when Jules, gorgeous queen of cool – reaches out - and **_f__rigging clasps Jin's hand in hers!_**

Like a – _**c-o-u-p-l-e!**_

_Nah. Can't be._ But then - Jin's normally deadpan face that can't hide his smug triumph, or won't. The glimmer of evil genius in his eyes knocks Miles knickers off. Or would have – had he still worn a pair.

"Hello Miles," he says, ever so civil, accent barely noticeable. Dressed in some newly ironed non-descript civilian clothes.

_But what the fickle fucking hell?!_

Miles can but fake a large ugly smile in place of a proper greeting.

When pigs can fly and all that kind of crap! It had never even hit near his radar – and Miles prides himself on noticing these sort of things. He's got a pretty awesome radar – at least when it comes to other people – other than himself. And Jin – of all the weird hogwild handsome Asians young men available (_mainly Miles himself_) Jin is way too wishy-washy, milquetoast for someone like Jules. How the fuck that aberration of nature had been allowed to happen – he'll never understand. And he'd never even had the slightest inkling. Probably far too busy pining for Kate – _fat big lot of good that has done for him._

_Juliet and Jin. – How freakin' catchy._

Juliet and Jim. Damn near enough. At least she won't have to worry so much about crying out the wrong name in the throws of..…fuck no! He's not even going to think it.

He tries to get himself together, almost pulling a muscle as he leans back feebly to study the happy couple from his sitting position. Kate has also completely distorted herself in an attempt to take the incongruous little scene in.

"So you and James are …." is all that he can come up with it. Only to be napalmed down by Jules sub-zero hyperborean glare. And Miles finds that he doesn't really want to know. – Not really.

Juliet - satisfied to have put a swift end to the possibility of any mildly intrusive inquiries - resolutely turns her attention towards Kate.

Miles take advantage of the respite only to mouth a : "You are married you stupid fuck!" in Jin's direction. "Sun - remember?" He swears that Jin understands this perfectly well but the bastard makes his narrow eyes completely symmetrically round and shakes his head as if Miles is the one who has lost his frigging marbles. Then, just as Miles turns his head back straight, he is almost certain he sees Jin make the delightful little Italian gesture for heavy balls. He wonders what the heck that means in Korean. And who the fuck has tough Jin the quaint little ins and outs of colloquial Italian?

"What's wrong with Miles?" Juliet tosses the question carelessly over his head as if he were just a washed-up decomposing jelly fish by her feet. The edges of her mouth turned down as if afraid the sludge of him might get on her shoes.

Kate's face is weird and empty, like she can't wrap her head around this latest morsel of news either and he has time to think that –fuck- she is considering the reality of a LaFleur/Sawyer-lovegod minus a hip-attached Juliet in the way of all the fun.

_Shit - He's so screwed. _She won't be carting around with him in her purse if she's got flipping Casanova pleasuring her. That'll be the end of her fashionable hot gay sidekick.

_And then the unthinkable. - She freakin' goes and outs him!_

"Oh Miles - he's just come out - and he's in love.." and it flips Miles out how dispassionately Kate says this in a loud fucking theater whisper: "…he's in love with James!"

She underlines all this by patting him sisterly on the arm he'd banned her from touching and Juliet's reaction is nothing but astonishing. She instantly releases Jin's hand, obviously to his great chagrin, gets down next to Miles and drapes one long elegant arm over his shoulders. Miles grasps the opportunity to expeditiously flash Jin a saucy grin behind Jules head. At which Jin's normally smooth complexion promptly erupts in angry pink spots.

Then he remembers briefly the unsettling information he'd studied in Jin's file all those years ago. Assassin. – Er. Better go light on the teasing. In any case, Juliet's hand hugging his shoulder in the most maternal way demands his immediate attention.

"Oh sweetie, you're in love…" she sighs. "I'm so sorry. Of _course_ you are – how could you not be? He's just like that….But honey – you know - he just doesn't swing that way…" Her compassion moving Miles so deeply –he almost imagines himself actually in love with the arrogant fucking doochbag in question. He's even starting to feel mighty sorry for himself, until he hears a quiet:

"He just might - if he knew how this guy kisses….." A barely audible mumble from Kate that he doubts was meant for anyone's ears. _But he heard. He heard!_ His back instantly springs up straight under Jules heavy pity-hug. A smile spreading across his face that he just knows looks ludicrous as hell.

_She likes the way he kisses._

_Kate n' Miles sitting in a tree......_

"Sweetheart, I'm sure if he did, if that's the way he was made, he'd absolutely like you," continues Juliet until she becomes uncomfortably aware of the change in Miles' whole demeanor. "Hey, Miles, are you alright? You look a little odd." Jules loosens her embrace and pulls herself back at which they clearly hear Jin exhale behind them.

_Kate likes him!_

Freaky Phil has obviously had enough of this lovey-dovey nonsense galore. He mercifully interrupting the humiliating symposium on Miles' love-life. Stomping impatiently as he stands there Lurch-like in his freakishly large boots. Miles assumes that he stuffs them with newspaper – nobody has that kind of feet. Like two big fat 'Kahunas'. Miles can't help noticing these things since he has been blessed with a pair of large healthy genuinely yacht-sized feet himself.

"Where is Mrs Chang? I heard she arrived with the Pala earlier." Phil grumbles. His weird shifty eyes not really looking at anyone of them under those creepy Ernie-and-Bert eyebrows.

Miles just signals with his thumb backwards, towards the barracks and the main building at which Phil, without a word of thanks, just clumps off like a herd of wild buffaloes leaving the entire jetty shuddering from the impact.

"So why are you here?" Kate stands up, heaving up Miles' slothlike body, and the three of them follow slowly in the tracks of Phil's gigantic boots. Miles notices Juliet and Jin exchanging a hesitant look before Jin nods ever so vaguely and Juliet bursts out:

"Something bad is going down – we couldn't stay any longer. It is madness over there. Jack, Dan and Dr. Chang have taken off with Ben to presumable join the 'Others'. They even abducted Ben and as far as Jin and I can understand, they are aiming to blow something up. We're not really clear as to what…."

_So daddy-o too. Hmm imagine that. _Gone and joined the other loony-toons on their kookoo mission. No wonder, mom had never wanted him to find the old wacko-head.

"Safer here." Jin adds uselessly. Really – Juliet has obviously lost her mind. Jin! She'd be better off with a wooden clog shoved down her throat. And Jin – wasn't that dry sack of scum married on top of all?! Doesn't taking a frigging vow mean anything to anyone anymore?

"That and we had to get away from James. He's not taking this very well at all actually," continues Juliet holding up hers and Jin's clasped hands as illustration but looking pretty darn miserable herself. Figures. With that dipstick.

"And Phil? How did you get that psycho to bring you?" Miles can't help butting in. It's all so flipping weird. _(But she likes the way he kisses!)_ He peeps at her where she walks on the other side of Jin. Smiling and dirty as hell. Cute as a kitten.

_Loves her. Fucking **loves** her! - No.-_ Don't even go there.

"We don't know really but when he heard we were getting away from James he was very eager to help with the boat. Seems he has a bit of a grudge towards him too…"

Miles can't be buggered all by all that crap. He's somewhere between hell and a fucking mirage that keeps moving every time he dares to get near it. Her tangled, ratty hair swinging on her back as she walks. _Loves….. oh hell – cut it out!_

"Hah,..." Kate says. "Who doesn't. We're all here because of him."

He sobers up instantly at the sound of her voice. _Who – him? God? _Are they getting into some existentialist pondering? He makes an effort to focus – but hell: _she likes the way he kisses!_

"Kate – I don't know what to say. It is a bit awkward to say this, but I wasn't all that surprised when he exiled you. It was Miles being sent off here by James that really threw me. I couldn't believe it. It didn't make sense. You guys have been good friends for a long time."

Miles blushes involuntarily at Juliet's words but decides to say nothing.

"But now it makes perfect sense! He obviously knows you have feelings for him. What is that about? Sending off every one who becomes a little uncomfortable to be around!" Juliet exclaims indignantly on their behalf - aiming the outburst pointedly at Kate this time. She quietly adds "Though I am not sure it wasn't entirely undeserved in some cases…"

_Hah, like letting that dodgy son of a bitch grope your boobs while you're drunk._

Miles notices Kate's jaw slackening as Juliet's accusation sink in and before she has a moment to rebut Juliet's theory he cuts in to confirm it.

"That heartless lowlife! Leads you on and then just packs you off when you become a nuisance…Uhum, happens to the best of us obviously!" he says with as camp and attitude as he can muster. Needs to pull the smog tighter around him.

Kate swings her face towards him. Mouthing something under a frown darker than the folds of Churchill's triple chins. He shrugs and flips his palms out innocently at her.

They all gripe about the insensitive prick together. Kate pretty half hearted at first he notices, with frequent death stare glares shot backwards at him but as they near the Hydra station she seems to be warming up to the communal feeling of bitching about LaFleur.

The kindred feeling swells in their chests as they all whine about the evil Head of Security's betrayal and how he pushes away all the people who care for him. Except Yin. He doesn't say much. Just watches Juliet, his possessiveness clearly on display across his stereotypical (stupid) handsome Korean soap opera features. A threatening frown fired off in Miles direction every now and then. Miles effortlessly counters this hostility with a little coy wink or a flirty raise of the eyebrow. Clearly freaking the stiff homophobe out of his stiffly starched bourgeois Korean pants.

He finds himself deliberately lollygagging behind the rest of the dregs of the Dharma Initiative, their little LaFleur-slopsucker ensemble. A chance to watch her for a moment – he drags behind there - with his idiotic fucking heart on his sleeve.

_She likes the way he kisses._

And just as their little group reaches the yard outside the main building they are met by the sight of a little gathering.

"Well hello fellows! Ain't this a nice little reunion!" La Fleur waves jovially to them as if he's been waiting. The blond hanging on to his arm looks familiar. _Yep. Crap – just exactly what he needs right now_. A giggling Cindy with her pert little boobs pushed up on Jimbo's legendary fucking irresistible biceps.

The only thing good about it all; _Kate doesn't exactly look ecstatic either._

* * *

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_So – on a little soap opera galore here, people mixing it up, switching partners and showing up with the most unsuitable cohorts. It will most certainly get worse in the next chapter. Yes definitely. People hooking up all over the place. But Sulietters and JinJuns don't depair, there is still hope that things will return to an uneasy truce by the end of the story. Maybe._

_Please review !_


	17. Annoying bastards

Sawyer has news. – Everyone has to make a choice but that can wait until the morning. As evening falls on our little outcast island, the gathering turns into a little impromtu feast. – Everybody is invited.

It starts off like a horribly awkward office party – minus the booze. And after some willing and grudging contribution of rum and grappa – it becomes a horribly awkward office party with booze.

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* * *

**Annoying bastards**

* * *

"_The road to truth is long, and lined the entire way with annoying bastards."_

_- **Alexander Jablokov**, The Place of No Shadows -_

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* * *

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"Come on folks – lets get a wiggle on!" LaFleur orders gleefully, beckoning to them as they all drag their feet over the threshold to the building.

_This doesn't bode well._

They are gathered in the little bleak Hydra canteen with its greybeige walls. It's been furnished by some colour-blind psycho, no doubt about this. Curtains in a flimsy claret red fabric, an abundance of bright orange plastic folding chairs and a long rickety table covered with several wax-cloths in a spunky green and yellow pattern that instantly gives Miles a splitting headache. They could do well with an Ikea branch here. He takes a closer look at the backside of one of the revolting, migraine-inducing chairs.

It is IKEA….circa 1970.

On the table, three vases are spaced out with a disturbing precision, holding some plastic flowers that have definitely seen better days. But no one really has time to worry about the interior of the canteen right now. Unless LaFleur has joined them to instigate an 'extreme make-over' of the Hydra refectory. Though judging from the odd crowd that has congregated - Miles suspects he has something entirely different on his mind.

Ceccherini is here, and one of the annoying Hydra scientists – the one called Malcolm, is Miles wild guess – but it might as well be Henry. _Who the frigging hell knows?_

"Just hang loose ladies!" LaFleur smiles jovially at them instantly making the collective level of mistrust spike sharply. He breezily pushes his way through the stunned audience. They follow him like a flock of sheep. Anxious glances thrown in a crisscross pattern in between them. Kate whispers something in Miles' ear, but he is so distracted by her hair tickling his cheek and the whiff of jungle and vanilla that he cares fuck all what she says.

Something shady's going on.

LaFleur parks his bossy rump on one of the orange chairs and lights up a cigarette. Cindy positions herself behind LaFleur's, her hands on his freaking manly shoulders as if afraid he might take flight. He lets them squirm for a while he leisurely sucks on his Dharma brand fag. His big blond frigging dreamboat head thrown backwards, eyes half shut retiring to his private little pleasure cosmos. Like he doesn't have a care in the world. The sole sound in the room emanated by the infuriating dawdling tapping of his fingers on the table.

The hollow noise makes Miles nerves twist into a little tight bundle. And he sure isn't the only one on the edge. Juliet looks like she has swallowed a cactus and even Jin seems uncharacteristically affected by the new arrivals – his normally inscrutable face showing clear signs of agitation.

"Alrightey then my little ducklings," LaFleur goads, quite plainly basking in the limelight.

Someone from the collected troops boos meekly. Sounds like Jin but when Miles turns to check out his pathetic show of dissent – Jin's face is back to its normal rigid death-mask state. LaFleur doesn't let a tiny smidgen of insurgence, especially not in shape of a little 'boo' ruffle his feathers. He is the big mister boss-man. He turns to bestow Cindy's cheeky bosom with an appreciative glance, eyeballing Juliet in passing too, just out of old habit one might assume - before getting on with it.

" Now that I got ya' all's attention; we have a little spot of civil disobedience, a petite coup d'état on our hands. Seems like we have been infiltrated by the hostiles and three persons led by Dr. Chang have flown the coop. We have word they might try to blow something up."

At this, the assembled mob breaks his flow and bursts out in a jarring cacophony of voices. All gabbing over each other's heads like wild chicken until LaFleur slaps a meaty hand on the table to make everyone cool down.

"Hey, hey, hey keep your petticoats on! Let me finish before ya'll go bonkers. We gonna' wait and see how the cat jumps - but during this little tiff; we ain't guaranteeing anyone's security. You folks have the option to evacuate with the sub tomorrow at 11.00 am. Those of you who choose to stay put– are on your own. Anyhooo - the Pala ferry will vamonos at 9.30. I suggest you yahoos get with the program."

A strange tense nail-biting silence descends on the little crowd. Lara hugs little baby Miles to her chest and Hugo places a protective arm around her shoulders at which Phil's eyebrows sink down so low they almost touch the tip of his nose. Very American bald eagle like – it strikes Miles.

Juliet stands next to Jin, her arms crossed and hands hugging herself. And Jin – well Jin is just plonked there like a wooden marionette, waiting for someone to pull a string or something. The only one looking reasonably in high spirits is Cindy. Her bee-stung lips are pursed into a little proud smile directed at the rest of the herd. She briefly catches Miles eyes and send him a playfully sly smile. Kate cottons on to this little exchange and to Miles great pleasure looks frigging miffed and puts her nose up in the air.

She likes him.

A murmur of "what will you do?" zigzags through the group.

"Going on the sub?" Kate's atypically timid voice right in his ear. He swivels around, she has sneaked up on him.

"What? Don't know – maybe – or I'll just stay and set up my own zoo." She sniggers at this and he picks his balls up and asks her. "You? You gonna' join the bratpack off to the real world?" His heart starts galloping away in sheer panic.

Stay!

She shrugs and he wants to pester her about it when he is crudely interrupted.

"Now that that's been said - what's there to eat in this dump?" LaFleur exclaims cheerfully clapping his hands together, doing absolutely nothing to dispel the tension he has created. In fact, appearing to absolutely revel in it. "Aw come on boys and gals! Let's make this last night merry."

The evil sadist.

The rest of the folks seem to wake up from their deathblow trance

"Well, then, let's see what we can whip up," says Barbara resolutely and wipes her hands on her apron, marching straight into the kitchen with Lara and baby in tow. Hugo promptly follows suit and – hey, wait a minute – Phil tagging along like a large unpleasant appendix.

* * *

It's awful.

It starts off like a horribly awkward office party – minus the booze. People rounded up together in close confinement - forced to fraternize with a gaggle of back-stabbing, toxic colleagues.

And after Barbara donates three bottles of prime quality straw rum and Ceccherini grudgingly offers up his stock of Grappa Antinori – it becomes a horribly awkward office party with booze.

Barbara has cooked up a storm in no time, dishing out some surprisingly good stuff – delicacies of which calibre has never before been seen on the island of Hydra. Malcolm is caught looking like an ass after having pooh-poohed Barbara's culinary skills to the entire congregation.

"How? I don't understand?! Who cooked this?" he slobs over and over again as he shoves his overloaded fork into his ugly pernickety gap. Barbara smirks enigmatically like a gastronomic Mona-Lisa as she walks between the tables, making sure everyone has enough. Phil carrying a tray of plates tramples on in her backwater, a freakishly overgrown Frankenstein-puppy.

LaFleur and Juliet sit across from each other at the large table with their respective new companions. Oh – and it is a chirpy fucking ensemble from corner to corner. Next to Jules is Malcolm, totally absorbed in the simple task of shuffling food into his sizeable mouth and therefore blissfully aware of the intense friction among the rest of the group. Ceccherini is seated beside Jin, disapproving pinched lips and all. At his side is Hugo – making longing doe-eyes at Lara. She sits serenely, at the head of the table, completely at peace with her baby sleeping in her lap. - Madonna like.

Lover of the unlovable.

Aw. He is…er… was... a pretty damn cute baby.

A testament to Miles frigging shit-luck – he's been forced to squeeze his ass down in between LaFleur and Phil. His two least favourites at the table – hell, of the whole D.I., no; of the whole the universe. Barbara's behind touches the seat next to Phil for like two seconds at the time before dashing to and fro the kitchen again. Phil obviously flustered in his maladroit attempts at making conversation with her.

And there at the opposite side of Lara, on the short end right in between Cindy and Hugo, Kate crowns the table like some grubby warrior princess of the outback. Leafs and twigs and stuff still caught up in her bird-nest hair – incredibly mucky. She could do with a shower.

Kate.

In the shower.

Arrgh.

The though of Kate and a shower in the same sentence makes him break out in cold-sweat. He has to thrusts three fingers inside the collar and pull it away from his throat to swallow down the hefty lump that gets caught there. She grins at him across the table, her teeth impossibly white against her grimy face. And he almost has a heart attack. She has no idea. She makes a thumbs up above her plate, presumably a compliment to the food and not present company.

The baby stirs and lets out a little birdlike cry, he starts fussing and Lara resorts to nursing him there at the table. Yeah, what the heck, half of present company has probably had the privilege peeping at her boobs on prior occasions – and in much less innocent circumstances. And Lara has never been a prude. Maybe it is the two glasses of grappa he has just downed – but Miles finds that he doesn't really mind all that much. It is kind of touching to see how his mom dotes on him.

Ah – damn grappa – always makes him sentimental.

He is just wiping away a wayward tear, pretending to blow his nose in the serviette when someone shouts loudly – (too fucking loud!):

"Hey Miles –dude- just realize that you two have the same name! Argh. Hugo. Madonna's idiot boyfriend.

"Yeah, yeah. Brilliant observation man." he snorts back. Hoping nobody takes too much note.

"Yes that is interesting Hugo," says Juliet primly like she was some kind of lame talk-show host. "Is that a common name in er..China?"

"Gee, I don't know Jules. I'm from California," He can feel the side of his face twitching.

Lay off it woman!

"Hey, me too! Maybe it is a Californian thing?!" Lara laughs, a big open-mouthed laugh that he has never seen before and everybody laugh with her. Miles realizes in that moment what everyone must see in her (apart from the exposed boob) –the fact that she just glows.

Mom.

Ceccherini polishes off his plate hurriedly and then fires off a series of transparently fabricated yawns indicating that he'd like to get the hell out of there. Probably worried that he'll be forced to volunteer any more hooch from his stash. Ceccherini salutes them all with a polite: "Vaffan'culo – cretini!". And stalks off out in the hot evening air.

It is nice that the old continental European's have such refined manners.

Latin is beautiful – and clearly not a dead language.

Quite predictably, like any good office party – after Ceccherini retires the situation quickly goes from bad to worse and as the liqueur flows - more than one person is thrown off his or her kilter. At first the conversation is rather civil but after about the fifth round of rum - things start heating up.

"So – so lets see, who here is not here because of James sneaky, cunning connivance? "

It is Juliet who sets off the avalanche of bitching that ensues - seemingly unable to keep her cool a second longer. And frankly, the way Jimbo ogles Cindy's cleavage is enough to put anyone off their food.

LaFleur is completely oblivious to any animosity against his own fine person. He's eating like it is his last meal on earth. Miles can't suppress a shudder as the shaggy haired goober licks his spoon all the way down to the handle, not even stopping as tongue encounters fingers.

The rest of them vehemently weathering their respective grievances. Forks are shaken in bossy-boot's direction and fingers pointed. Plenty of glasses are emptied and refilled. Hugo tells his sorrowful tale of how he was just following his heart not hurting anybody , ah well just that traitor Dr. Chang but deservedly so as it had turned out. Even Barbara comes out to tell the collected crowd of her misfortune as she had been deported to Hydra, an exile that she claims is completely unfounded. She was just minding her own business, doing her job when one day LaFleur showed up with her marching orders.

Lara strokes her son's downy head and bobs her head in silent concurrence with her friend's story. Having said her piece Barbara gets up, clears away some empty serving dishes to the kitchen. Phil promptly follows suit, fumbling awkwardly with a few empty plates himself, a ghoulish little smile making him look like Sesame Street gone bad. He disappears after Barbara through the swinging kitchen door. Like a shot, Hugo steals the spot next to Lara and busies himself with spoon-feeding her while the conversation grows increasingly heated at the other end of the table.

Kate hums and umms and nods at the accusations not really bothering getting drawn in to all the brouhaha. And every now and then, he'll find her staring at him with undisguised interest. Her lucid green cat eyes meeting his with a warmth that is unsettling. It makes him shy. In a way that he isn't used to, a flutter-your lashes kind of shy that rhymes badly with his funky, fly persona. There is something zapping between them, like a charge sparkling across the table and he wonders if she feels it.

No he doesn't wonder – he knows.

And as he takes a coy look at her, thinking for the umpteenth time that she is fucking gorgeous in spite of being stripy with jungle filth, Juliet calls his attention.

"Tell everyone why he sent you here Miles! What imaginary crime did you commit?!"

He almost chokes on his grappa. The acrid liquid shooting right up his sinuses as he grasps aimlessly for something to say.

The frigging cheek of that woman! Here he is – minding his own bloody beeswax… and she does – what?!

"Er…well the…er…yeah…ehum.."

He looks up to find LaFleur squinting at him across the table, expectantly, arrested in his movement, fork halfway into his open gob.

Oh

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* * *

There is a continuation to this cozy little get-together coming up. But fair warning given, it is nosebleed-inducingly stupid and I wouldn't want anyone to end up comatose. Can't offer any guarantees though.

I can guarantee some serious forking and feuding however.

Please leave a little review if you are still conscious. Cheers.


	18. Meerkat manor

The little impromptu fete is going swimmingly. Sort of…well… nah… not really. Everybody is there, Jun, Juliet, Hurley, Lara Chang, LaFleur, Kate and everyone gets in Miles' hair about his personal matters. Very personal matters.

We take off where we ended:

Juliet asks Miles to tell everyone why James has banished him off to Hydra. It gets a wee bit uncomfortable…

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Disclaimer: Not mine – none of it.

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Meerkat manor

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_"Pathetic," he said. "That's what it is. Pathetic."  
(crosses stream)  
"As I thought," he said, "no better from this side." _

_- **Eeyore (A. A. Milne)** -_

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Juliet is truly on a roll. Some people really shouldn't drink.

"Tell everyone why he sent you here Miles! What imaginary crime did you commit?!"

"Er…well the…er…yeah…ehum."

He looks up to find LaFleur squinting at him across the table, expectantly, arrested in his movement, fork halfway into his open gob.

* * *

"Just tell us Miles, go ahead! You're among friends now." she launches one of her trademark piercing ice blue laser-missiles in LaFleur's direction. Which the obnoxious asswipe apparently chooses to interpret as flirting, judging by the suggestive smirk he returns her. Blatantly showing off his stupid inch-deep dimples.

For the love of God! Juliet. Get a fucking grip!

"Yeah go ahead Gollum! Spill the beans!" he garbles almost unintelligibly. A mass of half masticated food clearly visible in his chock-full mouth as he shoves in another full load. The entire room has grown quiet. The only sound infringing on the absolute silence; the slosh-slosh of LaFleur's sloppy munching.

"Er..." Miles concludes sheepishly hoping that this will suffice as an explanation.

"Yeah, what's up Kabuki Sue? Cat got your tongue?" LaFleur leers at him with that indestructible confidence, throwing him a lecherous wink sideways. Slippery bastard! They've been trashing him for the better part of the dinner but like Teflon - nothing sticks to him.

"Yes, why are you here Miles?"

Ouch - Kate. Eyes round like a meerkat, all nervous energy and expectant curiosity, nibbling at her food. 'Drink woman!' he wills her, 'drink yourself stupid and forget all about this!' She looks terrifyingly sober next to Juliet who wobbles a bit as she tries to lean her chin on her knuckles, elbow sliding off the table. Everyone is waiting.

"Tell us!" Hugo's enthusiastic backing is particularly unwarranted. "What did you do?"

Aw –fuck it. What's with the sodding third degree?!

Jin looks keenly at him – white even teeth visible through a little stilted smile. Not trying the slightest to hide being pleased as butter about the 'Miles-prosecution' in progress. - Bet he can't get it up with Queen Frostine either! - It helps a little to imagine that he's not the only one trying to get it on in the daunting shadow of that legendary slimebucket. Jim-fucking-LaFleur; that impossible sexual yardstick, beneath which all other men quiver like jelly.

Miles pinches his lips shut tightly. Fuck it all. Fuck them all. Worse than the frigging Spanish inquisition. He concentrates on impaling his tortellini on his fork – discovering that he can fit three in one go. (Yay!). He finds that zipping it is usually the best defence in these situations, and then if all else fails. Sulking. So he does both - and in his nervousness he manages to spill cream sauce all over him, fork vibrating like a dentistry-drill in the hand of an amateur. It drips down his chin and down on the front of his overalls. Admittedly falling a bit short on the coolness- scale.

Look at you plate. Look at you freaking tortellini. Don't talk.

"Huh shortcake?! Tell them – go ahead!"

Damn him! Damn LaFleur!

"So shouldn't we talk about the rebellion? Dr Chang and his men trying to blow something up – shouldn't we discuss what to do? Maybe we can stop them?" It's Malcom, straight-backed and tight arsed with a prim little clenched expression on his pale face. He looks genuinely spooked. And Miles finds that he loves him! Loves him.

Yes – yes let's! Let's get back to what is important! The real issues.

A bored unison: "Naaah – let's hear from Miles - come on Miles! Yeah Miles!" echoes through the room.

"Yeah, rebellion-shmellion. Let's hear from Sushi Tei instead!" LaFleur wipes his puss with the back of his hand and shakes his frigging golden mane back. Looking like he's about to eat Miles for afters. And perhaps he will. A little Chinese digestive on top of that sumptuous Italianesque meal.

"Could it be that it got a little bit uncomfortable-having Miles around?" Juliet says in her superbly snooty manner. Like a falcon, eye hooked on her prey and the rest of them are either extremely turned on or scared out of their pants. Or both.

Hey – where does she come off…

Cripes. He might as well lie down and die under the frigging dinner table. The agonizing disgrace.

"Ha! Hardiharhar!! Uncomfortable my ass - Lucy Liu here's gone over my head. – Ain't that right you little bugger?!" turned towards Miles in mocking glee. "Went straight to Horace and ASKED for a transfer to bear poop scooping duty. Volunteered – hah – waddaya' say about that?! "

Oh frigging hell. Miles wishes feverously that the floor could open up and swallow him whole. He'll never live this one down. Never. Who the fuck asks to be transferred to Hydra?! A horny misfit circus freak – that's who! Or even worse; a horny heartsmitten misfit circus-freak!

Kate.

She will know.

Shit.

Next he realizes that he's never seen Juliet this sloshed before – hadn't noticed all the rum and grappa shots slinking down. But she is definitely slurring now and he'd like to lean across LaFleur and just throttle that goddamn Quisling. Shit. He really doesn't need his dirty laundry aired in front of the whole frigging Dharma congregation.

"Yes sure – It is still your fault - he'd probably have to get away from you. I know you can't handle having him hankering after you! You, you, you…. colossal hypocritical homophobe!"

Oh, no – she didn't.

At this LaFleur laughs so hard he first falls off his chair and then rips the seam of his jumpsuit-pants as he tries to crawl up amid the violent convulsions of laughter. It is only then that he notices that his fork is stuck in his thigh and Miles thanks his lucky stars for this little diversion - this respite from the humiliation.

Ha! The gods are on his side – no doubt about it.

LaFleur looks stunned for a moment, watching the fork-handle swaying slightly in his beefy leg. The only one capable of some kind of semblance of action is Juliet. Who, in spite her advanced drunkenness, swiftly pulls the fork out and presses her serviette over the four little holes. She helps him edge down on his seat, still pressing the napkin to his thigh and deftly manoeuvres her ass into the chair where Cindy is – in effect bumping her adversary off. A really nifty little move. Impressive.

Cindy looks seriously peeved, flipping her blond hair behind her shoulders. But she is smart enough to admits defeat without further squabble. It is Juliet after all and she is bloody freakin' scary. Instead she makes her way to Juliet's empty stool besides a spaced-out Jin. Jin peaks up visibly at her arrival, giving her a rather too polite once over and introduces himself dryly in perfect Juliettish school English.

"Jin. How do you do?"

She smiles and thrusts her substantial chest out, her back in a strained concave curve, making Jin blush an ugly shade of purple.

One a hell of a fracas breaks loose. Everyone is fussing over LaFleur. Someone runs to get ice to put on his fork wound and the intoxicated Juliet is looking progressively more affectionate by the second. Dabbing at LaFleur's thigh unnecessarily zealously with her napkin. And not exactly where the puncture wounds are either.

Miles finally relaxes – all attention turned elsewhere.

Phew. He's one lucky dawg!

He is stoked to have gotten away pretty unscratched, and Jimbo had it coming. Definitely. He turns his concentration back on Barbara's marvellous porcini cream sauce and pours himself some more rum. But just as he is about to resume his drinking – rim of glass touching his lips; LaFleur, the enormous douchbag, swings around and attacks him full on.

Completely unaffected by his recent encounter with the cutlery. He's on Miles like a bloody pitbull terrier.

"Soooo – you like me huh Miles?" he taunts, batting his lashes and leaning in revoltingly close. LaFleur's grappa breath hits him straight in the face. "Do you loooove me?".

Fuck this!

It's obviously a choice between eat or be eaten and Miles is definitely plunging his teeth in first. So he pushes his face up in LaFleur's ugly mug. Puts on a pretty worthy imitation of Cindy's pout and murmurs with a faux sex-kittenish voice:

" Yeah, I frigging love you dude and what – are – you - gonna'- do about it?!" Capping it of with wet kissing noises. " What's the matter?!! You scared of a little man-love are you?! Are ya?!"

This is the point when Malcolm decides to call it a night and shoots up from his seat, leaving the table without a word.

Hurley is hooting, someone wolf-whistles (Jin?). Kate seems more perplexed than actually amused. Juliet's face contorted in a prissy grimace, looking somewhat put off by this blatant display of manly affection. The natural precursor to a proper cock-fight. Feathers rustling, combs raised, wings spread menacingly.

"Hah! Come and get it – why don't you Tjing Chong." LaFleur gnarls but he still puts a palm on Miles chest and tries to keep his persistent suitor at arms length. Miles looking most of all like a lovesick aardvark leans on LaFleur's hand with all his body weight bringing them effectively to a stand still where no one really moves anywhere.

"And I will… you know I will! Come here cutiepooh – come to papa!" Miles is getting really into it and the only thing on his mind is to get one over on that conceited gorilla.

"So you worming your way over to Hydra had nothing to do with someone else?! Ha?! Huh?!" LaFleur says as he turns his head sideways, marginally avoiding Miles stretched out slobbering lips.

Miles doesn't know where it comes from and right now – he doesn't care.

Pow!

His fist darts out and makes an extremely satisfactory immediate contact with LaFleur's jaw. The giant oaf looks momentarily stunned and then vaults himself onto Miles with a roar, slamming him to the floor, knocking over both his own and Miles' glass. Rum splattering all around.

"Gonna' whoop your skinny ass! Gonna' be all over you like a cheap suit!" he grunts as he gets a good thwack in sideways and Miles has time to think that that's a pretty darn cool line. Wishes he'd thought of it first before LaFleur throws another punch that doesn't quite find its way. Thankfully. They grapple on the floor like two alley cats. More claws and teeth than muscles.

"Oh yeah?" Miles pants "Ooooh, you big scary boy! I'm so scared – ooooh." He fakes a violent quiver while trying to evade LaFleurs uncoordinated blows. In a fluke move he manages to clinch hold of a full fist of the freak's dirty blond hair and he yanks it viciously.

"Arrrg, fucking hell!!"

"What's the matter? Got a bee up your bonnet?!" Miles tugs again, hoping he might be able to rip a bald spot. Yeah, how'd the ladies like that huh?!

LaFleur grips him by the collar and thumps him the best he can but Miles quickly wiggles out of his clasp, dodging the clumsy attacks until unfortunately Lafleur gets plain lucky and manages to get him in a classic chicken-wing arm lock.

"Auf! Fuck!" Miles yelps as tartly as he can "That all you got!? - Big macho-man; just stomp on the underdog - why don't you!" He is hardly in a position to be cocky but if he's going down he will do it like a man. And Kate is watching. He won't take any more bullying from that ginormous beef head. Not now. Not here.

"Hah! Underdog my ass! You sneaky son of a bitch. Right under my nose too– I warned ya' to stay the hell away… didn't I?!" LaFleur applies more pressure making Miles frog-kick and squirm like a massive overall clad anaconda. "Didn't I?!"

"Eeek!"

"James, lay off him!" Juliet, bloody champion of lost causes cuffs James across the top of his thick handsome skull. "Haven't you've hurt him enough."

Dang right he has!

Though it's still fricking undignified to have her fight his battles. But amazingly her words have the desired effect and LaFleur lets go immediately. Miles grins at this as he struggles to find his legs again. – Looks like someone is a little obedient lapdog after all.

LaFleur is resolutely pushed down in his pew by Juliet and Hugo helps Miles sit down on the empty plastic chair next to him – both men wheezing, out of breath. Miles takes a peek in Cindy's little hand mirror and is surprised to notice that no substantial visible damage has been done. Not much more of blues and turquoise shades than what he had before. He's probably getting used to the constant abuse of the last few days; Hugo, LaFleur, Kate, LaFleur…..Everybody's fucking punching-bag.

And Jayzuss Mary, dear mother of God! That chicken-wing arm lock was not for sissies. He clasps his aching side and reaches to self-medicate with a liberal refill of rum.

"James. How could you!?" gasps Juliet at the sight of Miles in considerable pain, the fork-wound-ice hastily passed to him – an undeniably more deserving cause. And man, she looks pissed. He sure is glad he's not LaFleur now – and a little excited to see how this will play out.

"Not cool dude, not cool," It's Hugo butting in, shaking his head disapprovingly. The rest of the crowd nods in agreement, amen to that. Haha, guess who is the bad guy now?

LaFleur skims the faces of the gathered crowd fleetingly, astounded to find the whole room in a unified disapproving frown.

"Yeah right – boohoo! – If I'd had it my way this bozo would have stayed right put! Hell – I made it clear didn't want him anywhere near her!" His stabs his finger in Kate's direction.

Oh, it's like a bloody tennis match, everyone's head moving simultaneously in the direction of the pointed finger. Hugo shines up like a lighthouse over there – like he has drawn some entertaining conclusions of his own. His lips shaping the words 'I knew it! I knew it!'.

And the rest of them stop speaking, stop moving, stop breathing.

"Say what?..."Kate breaks the stifling silence. She looks woozy and out of it, like she is too slow to keep up with the twists and turn. And frankly Miles feels like he's been left behind too. He has no idea anymore why he fights this. Let that freaking moron tell the whole world!

Let him!

"You're a dog alright Miles. What the fuck did you disobey me for. Told ya' to stay the hell away from her!" LaFleur glowers at Miles like he's good to have another go at him.

"What are you talking about James – can't you see that you have broken the poor guy's heart!?" Juliet comes to his aid, her eyes filled to the brim with a drunkard's slushy sentimentality.

But for Greenspan's fucking sake. Lay off the sauce woman! He pretends to study his fingernails.

"China blue here does not have the hots for yours truly …" LaFleur , obnoxiously trying to build up some kind of climax.

He must put a stop to this. He grinds his teeth - heart pounding like a jackhammer.

"Want another fork in you - Jimbo?..." he sneers, trying his best to come across as intimidating. The result however is quite disappointing, each and everyone turning to bestow him a pitying look.

"Hah, yeah that would be like really silly." Cindy suddenly makes her presence known. "He wasn't gay with me – were you Miles?! I'll testify to that – I'll tell them, should I Miles?!"

She titters in her little annoying high pitched giggle and Miles thanks the sweet lord above that he didn't go for an 'encore' with her after all. The only thing mildly pacifying about that giggle is the way it joggles her bust. Every male creature around the table is caught up by the tantalizing vision and lovely thoughts of the birds and the bees only to be cruelly jostled back to reality by Juliet.

"No thank you Cindy. That won't be necessary," she says wryly, totally unflustered by the other blonde's sudden outburst. "But I'd like to hear from James now. What is this all about?"

LaFleur jabs his index finger repeatedly in Miles' direction. Juliet grabs his hand and forces it down in his lap, in a preventive measure to avoid another childish rumpus breaking out.

"Caught that perv copping a feel of Miss Congeniality's modest assets here – and she was passed out cold – blind drunk. Who did you think beat the crap out of him?!"

Both Kate and Miles squirm in their seats. Kate throws him a hasty flittering glance, frowning and mouthing: "did you?" At which Miles vigorously shakes his head and screws his finger against his temple indicating that LaFleur is indeed out flying the kookoo express. Also using a completely different hand gesture to show that she does not have modest assets. She grins at him and he feels his ears sizzle.

But the attention is really not on him anymore. All minds on the bickering security boss and his formidable ex.

The tension. Will they? Won't they? It's unbearable. It's awsome!

"Ok so you beat the pulp out of your friend over her! What does that tell me?" Jules says in a self restrained froth-around-the-gills sort of way. Her blue eyes bloodshot and wild.

"Ah, Jules, Blondie, babe you know I have to look out for her. She's not normal, she makes fucked-up choices all around – just look at how she hooked up with the doc. Freckles is a friend honey – nothing more – just trying to be a good guy. Goddammit Jules, I did it for you!!"

Honestly – that's a bit weak as defences go. Not a chance she'll gobble that up.

"Eh,… I don't really agree with that…That part of not normal…." Kate mutters but no one pays her any heed and she fiddles nervously with her serviette.

Silently - Miles wholeheartedly agrees about the Doc. Jacko - that was more than a tad weird. He fails to see the charm of that slack jawed boy-scout. Then again, the scene unfolding in front of his very eyes is a clear testament to the mind blowing stupidity of women in the face of an excessive dose of testosterone.

Give a chick, any chick, a big macka-daddy with chiselled stubbly jaw, dimples and some biceps - and sure as hell; she will transform into a complete saphead. Oh, and apparently, it doesn't hurt to throw in some blond unkempt hair and washboard stomach into the deal. The shallowness of it all – it's freaking sickening is what it is!

Astonishingly Juliet looks close to tears and something quite outlandish follows as the others watch in disbelief. LaFleur suddenly grasps her chin in his fingers and looks at her with such tenderness that even Miles get a little teary eyed.

Nah! - Who are you kidding?

He doesn't go for that kind of sappy crap.

But maybe he should start working out? Cultivate a manly-man five-o'clock-shadow? Argh - nope that won't work. Only able to grow some peach fuzz above and below chin. Damned Chinese DNA and the fucking horse it rode in on. Another reason to hate Dr. Chang.

"Aw babydoll– cutiepooh, ya' know there's only you." LaFleur bends towards Jules, rubbing the tip of his nose against hers, his ugly mop of greasy girl-hair whipping from side to side.

Ah that guy is so full of crap – there is no way Jules will fall for that monumental truckload of bullshit. It's just plain cheesy.

"Oh baby. I'm…I'm…mmmm." Urgh. Ice queen clearly melting.

Miles has to turn away but peril is everywhere and his eyes accidentally fall on Kate. She makes a retching gestures, indicating two fingers in her throat and he responds by grimacing "I know!".

"Sorry sweetcheeks –even if you dig someone don't mean you're supposed to be with that hottie." he says softly in Cindy's direction giving her perky rack, one last admiring peek at which Juliet promptly smacks him over the head. "But I always got you back pumpkin!" he adds briskly.

Grotesque is what it is.

"As long as you don't have her back or front or anything," Juliet snaps but everyone watching this knows that LaFleur is in the honey. Banished no more – back to domestic bliss.

Cindy isn't the brightest fish in the sea, Miles knows this by experience, but he admires how fast she sasses out the terrain and her prompt decision to capitulate in face of Jules undisputed victory. Female instincts maybe? Survival of the fittest and all that.

"Ya you know – whatever," she says and stands up abruptly, flicks her hair back and places a hand on a curvy velour clad hip, calling backwards. "Always liked Japanese guys anyway. You coming Ginny?"

"It's Jin, and I am Korean" he tries to correct her but gets up all the same. "Can I call you Sunny?"

They disappear in a chitter-chatter out the door, mostly Cindy upholding the conversation part but at least, Jin nods eagerly and looks genuinely stoked. He evidently has got a thing for blondes.

Jules and her big ape are all over each other and weirdly, He automatically scan for Kate's reaction. Will she look miserable - like she usually does?

She does.

She looks like a gnarled battered puppy, definitely worse for wear. Hangdogged expression, and everything wilting. And fucking hell. To see her pine for that dunce. It hurts worse than a thousand polarbear darts to his ass. Well that's figuratively speaking off course – that's not exactly where the pain sits. He thinks for a fleeting moment that he should go over to her.

And do what?

A loud clanking and clatter from the kitchen interrupts this train of thoughts. It sounds like someone is getting bludgeoned to death with a titanium searing pan in there.

A few seconds later, peering skittishly out from the kitchen door; Phil with his security overalls askew, flushed cherry-red and a clearly dishevelled Barbara trailing behind. Her skirt on backwards. Ignoring all the inquisitive glances, they glide right by, hand in hand out through the exit door. A wildly incompatible couple, that chillingly enough comes across as the most appropriate pairing in the room.

Wow. It's like Meerkat Manor on psycho-pharmaceuticals.

While everyone is still reeling from the Phil-Barbara shock, Kate silently gets to her feet, Miles' heart sinking to his knees. She pushes the hair out of her mucky face, doesn't even look at him. Probably their last night on Hydra Island and there she is slinking through the door.

Fab. Fricking fab job Miles!

Really fucking awesome. Everyone else hooking up - people that ideally ought to be separated by a gigantic razor wired fence. And here he is. Punched-up, faux-gay, perverted boob-groping, bear-poop shuffling Hydra volunteer. With the hirsute challenges of a prepubescent boy -and not a fucking inch closer to clinching the deal! With her.

Pathetic.

If only he'd had some frigging balls worth their name - he'd have gone after her. Would have told her how he feels.

He sinks his face into his palms. The rum really getting the better of him. His head swirls and he feels mostly like throwing up.

Truly pathetic.

Hell. He might as well go and shoot himself with a polar bear dart

* * *

Wrapping it up in a big loving style – people getting it on left and right.

- Except Miles. -

_**Review if you liked it!**_


	19. Butterflies and confetti

_Just another load of wallowing in my own lowbrow infatuation with Miles. And romance is in the air, (in honour of the upcoming Valentines') though horribly lopsided..._

_If nothing of this makes sense, well it's because it just doesn't… _

* * *

**Butterflies and confetti**

* * *

"_It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid." _

_-__** George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)**__, Man and Superman (1903) "Maxims for Revolutionists__" -_

* * *

He sulks in a corner. Everyone else is having the freaking time of their lives. Drinking it up and making out like spider monkeys. Juliet has clearly gone off the deep end, draped like a sack of potatoes across LaFleur, hands snuck in where they shouldn't be._ Not in public at any rate. _He liked them better when they were fighting.

Hugo slaps him on the back in passing. _Oh great. Another fucking pep talk._

"Dude you gotta' tell her! Tomorrow everyone might be leaving on the sub or she might stay and maybe you'll never ever see her again. Tell her! Tell her how you feel – she won't laugh."

_Bada-bing. Very funny!_

"Yeah – and how the fuck do _**you **_know that!?"

Hugo rolls his eyes at him and just turns around on his heels. Lara with baby Miles waiting for him. He has got his on dry land already. Lucky bastard.

"Just do it buddy!" he shouts over the music and the sound of LaFleur's and Juliet's seriously gross moaning and oh-and-ah-ing.

Man, the big guy's grown a cruel streak. And the '_dudes'_ and _'buddys_' in every damn sentence is getting frigging old.

_There is no way in hell he can ever tell her._

* * *

He ends up standing on the doorsteps chain-smoking. Feeling smug, having snitched the package from LaFleur's back-pocket in an unguarded moment, after hustling Juliet's groping hands away.

And suddenly she's there, nursing a mug of…_grappa?_

_Cute as a button._

The hair like a tangled curtain falling down around her grubby face. He can just about make out the tip of her nose when she stands like this, in profile. And he wonders if she's sad. About the golden couple pawing each other there inside. Is she still holding on to some kind of hope for him?

But even if she does - she's here. Next to him. _Pariah of the Dharma Initiative._ And he likes to think that she came looking for _**him**_. She casts a quick nervous glance at him, a little shy smile that looks out of place. Considering that just earlier today she'd ripped his frigging underwear off – it seems a tad obsolete to play coy.

His spirits soar though. The alcohol inside his belly giving him courage to talk. And the thought of grappa sloshing around in her – well, _it helps_.

"So – this was fun huh?" he says trying to avoid fidgeting too much. He fumbles awkwardly with the ciggie, almost dropping it inside his own open-necked overall.

"Awesome." Kate breathes like she really means it. Her arm brushes by him, and his skin feels like someone's poured acid on it.

_Be cool Miles. Don't blow it._

She lifts her face up towards the brilliant night sky above them, deep Indian blues and purples, the stars like something off a film-set. He looks at her, takes pleasure in watching her profile, thinking she might not notice in the darkness. _Ha! He has kissed those lips_, he thinks. At least something good has come out of the last few day's of living hell.

"What part?" He wills her to _say; the standing here with you! To say;__** I love you Miles!**_

"This. It's just awesome! " She makes an expansive gesture with her entire arm almost knocking him across the face with her elbow. "Everything."

_Good enough for him._ Though a_ 'You're hot Miles' _would have sufficed too.

And then she turns to smile at him, a naughty little smile that has his pulse accelerating, revving itself up. The nose wrinkled like a fucking rabbit, and those teeth, slightly too large. _LaFleur is a big fat idiot – but what's new? _He'd never in a million years jump off a frigging helicopter for her. He'd clamber on to her like a psychotic leech if he'd have half the chance. If she'd felt like that about him.

But this… She is clearly into him right? All the blinking, whirling red neon arrows are pointing in that direction right? The thought just fills him with a galloping panic. He has to concentrate to do the breathe-in-breathe-out thing. How fucking difficult should it be?

_Just cool it Miles. Cool it._

She takes a large swig from her mug, so large that the swallowing sound echoes off the cement steps.

"So it looks like little Miles will end up in good hands huh…" Her voice soft in the humid night air.

It about shuts down his entire system. He can feel the blood flow just coming to a grinding halt. Maybe a few drops of blood trickle by but it's just about enough to keep him standing up. _ Shit, she is a wicked little thing! _All innocent freckles and round flush cheeks.

'_In good hands indeed!'_ What the fuck is she up to now? Is she about to have another go at manhandling the little Miles minus underwear. Little commando-Miles now. – _That damn traitor_.

He is so freaked out he drops a big piece of smouldering ash on his chest and has to jump around to flick it off before it burns a hole through his non existing chest hair._ Oh fricking hell._

No.

She's talking about baby Miles. Yep._ Of course. Who the heck cares about the other 'little Miles'?_

"Yeah – he'll have a decent chance with Hugo." he says blowing the last remains of ashes off his chest, trying to at least act half cool.. "And a weight problem for sure."

They are quiet for a while, Kate peering at him as she lifts the mug to her mouth again._ That's right – drink girl, drink yourself senseless! Tomorrow you might remember me as vaguely hip and intriguing in spite of all this._ And Miles hopes they are not both picturing a Miles with Hugo's impressive bulk.

"So, not gay then huh?" Her eyes like headlights above her grappa mug, the upturned edges of her mouth visible on the sides of it, the spitting image of Batman's nemesis.

_Tell her!_

The damn ghost of Hugo in his bloody head. _Teeeeell heeeer. Tell her!_

"Just a little." he counters. And she snickers at this, turning up her nose to him.

"Tst.…don't get cute with me Miles." Poking her tongue at him. Pink between big funny teeth. "I didn't buy this whole gay thing for a second anyway."'

"Well you did long enough to punch my damn intestines out of me!"

"Yeah – sorry about that," she says half shamefaced, half as if she still thinks he'd deserved it. And then frustrated, almost pissy, throwing her arm out, the last of her grappa splattering on his uniform and the steps ." Come on Miles, do you like me or not?!"

Miles prods the tip of his shoe in the ground, shrugging like a shy five year old.

And he can't remember a time when he _didn't_ love her. Had there ever been such a time? It seems improbable now. He's loved her since she conned him out of that shack to blackmail Ben.

"Meh... – You're ok I guess…." (_You are fucking gorgeous! I love you! __**Love you!!**_)

"So what's the deal with Sawyer? What's he got to do with this?"

He gulps down a large mouthful of air. Oh, so this is how she will play it. _Straight on._ No bullshit. And it's now or never. Hugo's curly headed advice twirling around in his mind, making little taunting pirouettes: _tell her!_

_Tell her! Tellhertellhertellher!_

He places his hand across his eyes. Shit, he can't look at her while saying this. He sits down on the steps and she slips down right next to him, sleeve against sleeve, shoulder against shoulder, a little bare patch of skin against skin. The cells on his arm standing up in a big horny love parade screaming off the top of their heads:_** I love you!**_

_Mmmmm. _He could just dive into her. She smells like earth and dirt and fresh air. She is like freaking jungle candy. But fucking enough with the dreaming for Pete's sake! He's got to do this now. Last chance and all that. Hugo is right, annoying love-guru or not, _he's got to tell her!_

But first he's got to wade through thigh deep in the shitty backwaters of Sawyer. And if possible make her understand what enormous pressures are mounted against them ever getting beyond a chaste little peck on the cheek.

He shoots up, managing to throw over her grappa mug in the sudden movement. His fingers tremble as he shakes out another smoke and he almost puts fire to his own eyebrow as he struggles with the big metal Zippo (_haha, LaFleur's too_). Standing up as well, she snatches the lit cigarette out of his hand, inhales quickly while staring at him so intensely he worries she might go cross eyed. _God she's gorgeous._

_Ok. Here we go._

"It's the whole….this.. It's Sawyer and you and Jack and you and Lara and you and anyone you've ever kissed but mostly and mostly it's just you and that fucking LaFleur! Hell, I don't think I can face it," he whines, tossing his dirty, dirty hair back. Realizing only too late that this is an exact imitation of LaFleur's annoying hair jostling thingy.

She sucks in air through the cigarette filter. Face like Chernobyl at the brink of melt-down. She looks fucking toxic and he wonders briefly what direction to run in. He bets she will catch up easily. Tackle him to the ground and give him a good beating for being such a wimp in the first place.

And the pissyness full-blown now. She's not having any of this crap. She turns to face him straight on – puffing out a little cloud of smoke before she shoves the cigarette back between his fingers. It makes him cough but it's not the smoke – it's her. Too close - he wants to scream. - _It's not…._

"Well you better figure it out Miles... " She moves her face closer, her breath on his skin., a mixture of grappa and tobacco and … Oh crap. No. And he could either kiss her or run screeching from there.

He takes the middle way.

"Pssst!" Stumbling backwards, down the steps he makes a crucifix by crossing his index-fingers and the remains of the cigarette, holding them up against her. Trying to ward her off. He has no idea what the heck he's doing. _Seemed a good idea for a second._ But as she stands in front of him, menacing, with her hands on her hips and murder in her eyes he reconsiders this.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?!" Very Juliet-like ice queen style – and he finds it a downright turn on. "What is wrong with you Miles?!"

_Yes. What __**is**__ wrong with him? He blames it on Chang. On LaFleur. Phil even._

"Explain!" she demands with a quiet restrained voice that rhymes badly with the missile launch pad stance of her entire body. Not worth risking another gall-crushing blow to his vital organs.

"Well…." He says, looking up at her from beneath modest eyelashes. "Hell, this is embarrassing…"

"Yep." She nods. He is a fucking disgrace – and he knows it. Hottest frigging chick on the island. And she is here. For some unfathomable reason – seemingly quite eager to get it on – _with him. _So he just lets it out:

"Ain't _**no **_man willing to go where Jim flipping LaFleur's been!!"

His voice shriller than he'd have liked. Fingers shaking like he's on crack as he brings them up to his temples. Eyes pinched shut. Hard. _Argh._ Just thinking of it makes his head burst.

And he is forced to wedge his eyes open when she pushes him backwards, little harsh shoves with both of her hands on his chest. _Uhu. It will come to blows again_. He is sure of it. The colour of her face, red – drunken anger.

"Oh really Miles!? That's your big problem!? LaFleur!? And what about Sawyer - what's the big deal? You even talk like him! _Ain't, ain't_ – what the hell is that Miles?!"

"Yeah. Yeah! So you see what I mean!?"

He catches on to her wrists in an attempt to stop the fricking shoving.

"So – you're scared of what exactly? The comparison?.. That I'll compare the two of you? That's what that was all about today after the bear dart?"

_Yes – yes. That's it __**exactly**__._

"No but…You guys have a history, it's just. Hard… And the bear sedative, I swear, it did something to my vitals… _That,_ that's never happened before."

Her turn to be quiet now. She glances down at her scruffy boots, the mud-stained overall legs. And then suddenly she looks back up at him, sly grin that has him shivering. Eyes slightly out of focus. Grappa clearly working its magic.

"Miles…." A voice like sugar and honey. It makes his knees go week and he'd like to swoon there and then, fall into her embrace. Though knowing her she'd probably just wrestle him to the ground and have her naughty way with him.

He suddenly wants romance, rose petals and little birds chirping in the trees. Poetry and a symphony of violins in the background. Her in a flowing white gown – and shit.

_What the __**fuck**__ is wrong with him!? What the hell has she done to him?!!_

"Uhu….yeah?"

He won't let go of her wrists. Won't risk it. _She is crazy. _And he is a romantic. And impotent - for sure.

"You know what they say - about how you get over your fears?...."

"You avoid them….?" he says meekly – picturing her with flowers in her hair, minus mud and grime._ Fireflies, butterflies and confetti. Fairies dressed in spun cotton candy…_

"No you big dope! You've got to face them. Right on!" That vertical line between her eyes when she is aggravated. _Adorable. _

"Oh yeah?....You mean…like what?.. Like how would I do that?"

This is when she slides in, glides right in between his arms and he can't stop her. For all his fears and paranoia, he can't stop this.

"You know Miles. You know what to do…."

Shit. How did he end up here? Like finding yourself suddenly on the top of some steep cliff. Too scared to climb down. He's put bolt after bolt in without even thinking and now he suddenly finds himself almost at the peak, faint, light-headed, trembling and giddy. Not daring to look down and too petrified to climb the last stretch. Wondering what the fuck he was thinking.

He doesn't know where he gets the cojones to do it. Mostly he just fakes it.. runs with it, and frankly ends up getting a little bit carried away.

"Ok, you might have a point Kate! Hell yeah. We'll do this shit! Let's erase the memory of that miserable son of a bitch tonight! We'll get it on in the bear cage, jump out of helicopters, shack up with the 'Others', have hot sandy tent sex – the whole shebang!" At the end of this outlandish declaration, he finds himself dizzily grabbing onto her ass through the mucky overalls, pressing her against him. Like a real man would have done.

If she's at all surprised by this sudden show of some normal red-blooded brawniness – she sure doesn't show it. She quips a simple 'ok' and grabs him by the hand.

Though secretly, his mind flutters off to pink skies and vanilla scented girl stuff. Unicorns, wedding bells and _oh hell_….

If this is love – _it is fucking emasculating._

* * *

_._

_._

_So it looks like romance is on for Miles after all - maybe - as long as Sawyer and company can stay out of his way for two minutes. _

_Oh, and season 6 premiere, the hotness is just all-consuming (and very inappropriate, I realize that), Miles all sad with his ear on that grave. I was a little bothered by the traipsing along to temples and stuff though – far too little screen time for what really matters (Miles, Miles, Miles)._


	20. Hangover cure

_Sorry for leaving it so long if anyone is still reading this nonsense... I'm still waiting for these two to become a canon couple. The new season is turning out to be somewhat of a disappointment… Seriously. As delicious as nekkid Sawyer was in Recon, where is Miles' shirtless air-time? Just isn't fair. I might have to do some photo-shopping on this…_

* * *

**Hangover cure**

* * *

"_The only cure for a real hangover is death."_

_**- **__**Robert Benchley**__** -**_

* * *

"Come on," she twitters and he wants to point at his chest.

_Me?! You mean me?_

The hottest hottie on the island, and for some unfathomable reason she seems to like him. Him.

It can't be. _But it is. It is._

She's tugging and dragging him along by the sleeve of his overalls and he isn't complaining. No. His heart races crazily and he is so disoriented he doesn't even realize where she's taking him. He thinks that she will lead the way to some top-notch make-out spot and the disappointment is like a well-placed uppercut to his jaw. They are heading straight back into the Hydra refectory.

_Immediate buzz kill._

Crap. Yeah, he knew it was too good to be true. She probably just wants to show off in front of LaFleur, show that she has someone too. The sinking feeling of being used as a mindless pawn in their little game.

* * *

They haven't been gone long but _**man**_- promiscuity is obviously the word. He saunters on behind Kate, trying to shield his eyes with the side of his hand from the onslaught of horribly inappropriate public displays of affection all around the room.

"Where the freaking hell are we going, " he hisses to her, trying desperately to protect the last shreds of his innocence.

_Argh_…

He just saw Sawyer doing something so abominably off limits - he fears he may never recover. If she wanted to _get it o_n – this would be the textbook move to make sure it will _**never **_happen. _Ever. _He's thinking celibacy doesn't seem like such a bad option right now. Wonders how he'd look in black robes and a little white collar.

_Pretty darn spiffy most likely_.

"Just looking for something – come along…" she says with a foxy kind of voice that makes him want to runs screaming in the opposite direction. She has a strange simpleton kind of nonchalance about her. Weird as hell - considering that the guy she's been moping around for is currently engaging in some incongruously inappropriate activities right here._ Right now._ Yeah. Didn't figure Jules for the red lace kind of girl. _Hmm. _

_Eew_. Look away. L-o-o-k a-w-a-y.

To his great disbelief, Kate sails through the sordid surroundings like purity and virtue personified. Her head held high in aristocratic elegance as she cruises through the murky waters of obscenities. For all intents and purposes - oblivious of the debauchery around her. Incorruptible. It freaks him out, how she can be so cool about it. She is either legally blind or much drunker than he'd originally thought.

Or. And this is too horrible to think of. This is nothing to her. As if she has been on the receiving end of that specific display of _ehem_…uncommon expression of affection and it's nothing new to her.

_Jules is surprisingly bendy though._

No. No man. Focus. Think of something else. Ice hockey…wonder if …no it isn't working. What the….?! Chicks _**like**_ that? – Can't be legal. Seriously. That can't be frigging legal in any freakin' country!

_Yeeks_, h_e has __**got**__ to get out of here._

And precisely when he fears his retina is about to tear itself off and up and just leg it, Kate pushes the swinging door to the kitchen open with her shoulder. _Mercy._ Tippy-toeing like an enormous five year old, as if she thinks it will make a difference in her bulky boots. Gracious like a stealthy little Heffalump - deluding herself that she is invisible. He lumbers on behind her wondering for the umpteenth time where the heck she's leading them. And _**what**_ could possible be worth subjecting themselves to these visual assaults.

That in there. He is nauseous now and hell he isn't even all that prude, but there is something alarmingly unnerving about the thought of her and Jimbo - lover extraordinaire. That slick, sickening self confidence, and the thought that she has probably been privy of her own fair share of some similarly funky moves, love extreme league version. It's enough to want to hurl.

Not even the kitchen is safe from the onslaught of grotesque mating rituals tonight. As they round the corner of the little half partition they are unwitting witnesses to what happens if you merge Sesame street with chocolate sauce and whipped cream and something that looks suspiciously like a long lean, human sized wafer.

…_Nah it can't be_. Yep. _Hell yep._

Yes. It is Barbara in an apron and nothing else. Phil is on the countertop, has cream up to his bushy eyebrows and the rest is too fricking blood-curling to articulate.

As he and Kate crouch down behind the cupboards and sneak silently along the floor he swears he will never again eat a piece of food prepared in this kitchen.

_No whipped cream either come to think of it. Ever._

He tries to concentrate on the significantly more uplifting sight in front of him. Kate's grubby overall-covered patootie in the air. He locks his eyes on that vision, determined not to let the rest soil his mind tonight. He watches how her round little pert behind edges it's way in front of him, and he can't help thinking.

_She likes me. She fucking likes me!_

Kate suddenly stops by an open cabinet and he sort of bumps in to her rear with his forehead. So intent on studying it that he hadn't even noticed her slowing down. She swivels her head around, one finger over her lips. Unnecessarily, because there is no way in hell he'd ever want to draw the attention of those two epicurean circus freaks. He can't help shuddering.

_The cream… ugh_. If that's not enough to put you off dairy for life…

She reaches into the cupboard and draws something out. A large liqueur bottle with some radioactive Kermit-green stuff in it. She looks outrageously satisfied over the loot. Unzips the overalls just a bit and tucks the bottle inside.

_Held in place by what?_

He can only watch in stunned admiration as she carries out this magnificent feat. She zips up again and gestures to him to turn around again. Eyebrows wiggling eagerly. He shakes his head.

No, there is no way he's going out the same way as they came. He's already scarred for life._ She might as well just castrate him for fricks sake. _This damned place of Sodom and Gomorra. It must have a back door.

_Please have a back door. __**Please.**_

It does and as they push it open together, still frog walking near the floor when they hear a loud gruff roar from the other side of the kitchen.

"Who's there!?"

And Barbara's soothing voice:

"Never mind that Phil, did I tell you we've got strawberries too baby."

They burst through the door, tumbling down the two steps to the ground. Kate with a slick, deft move that saves the bottle of rat poison she's just stolen.

"So we got the booze right here," she says smugly and pats her own bulging chest area. "Now all we need is to find a good spot."

"Wha..what?"

"Lets get drunk Miles. It's the only way, trust me," she says in an earnest way that instantly makes him _not _trust her. "We'll do the round here and you'll see you have nothing to worry about. What you just saw,… Sawyer – ah – that's just a load of smoke and mirrors. Nothing to it."

"Eh, round? You shouldn't bank on me doing something like _'that' _ though." he says with a shakier voice than he would have wished for, a thumb vaguely indicating the defiled Hydra canteen behind them. She disregards it completely. Just smiles that ludicrously wide toothed grin. "Just saying, I don't think the spine is supposed to be bent like that anyway. It can't be normal…"

"I think it's best we look at this as some kind of therapy….You know…" she says and flutters her eyelashes coquettishly. "To help with your, ehem, little problem."

_His little problem! _He is tempted to bring up her little _'issue'_ too but doesn't think it would be conducive to call her a nymphomaniac right now.

"Then you shouldn't have brought me to the canteen. Therapy - pah…it will take exorcism to clear that stuff away…" he mutters but it's mostly for show and because he's already imagining it. Her and him and…crap. This love stuff really does complicate things. Maybe if he told her? No? No.

Hugo can go and screw himself. He's not doing it. Not telling her. That would be the end of him, he knows it.

Her eyes are round and unfocused like she's already somewhere else.

"We could take the barracks first, or the cage or…oh,… You know, we also did,… you know… on the beach as we were sneaking away… We'll start off there.."

She's already hauling him off in the direction of the beach front.

"While you were running off?...That really true…?" Miles is somewhat sceptical.

"Yep. _**Totally**_."

That doesn't sound right.

He understands that LaFleur is some kind of hyper-sexed monstrosity of an uber mench but surely he wouldn't have had time to … while they were escaping. And _hmm_... Well it's sort of comforting that he would need _that_ little time. Miles has always been a fervent fan of the _quickie_. It's good to know that she might not have high expectations in that regard at least. And Kate, well the chick is to die for though honestly she could need a good scrubbing right now and he just tries to imagine getting intimate with her after a few days in a bear cage. And well, it's a bit of a stretch…

But then again. Who the heck is he to argue.

"Eh, okay….lets go then." Before he looses his courage. His flimsy rinky-dink nerves quivering like a bunch of newborn baby-kittens.

She sidles up, close, sweat making the little hair around her face curl up tightly, little humid ringlets around her forehead. She holds on to his arm and leans in as they come bumbling forward like a clumsy three-legged creature.

"Well, there are a few more things we did," she whispers. The hair on his neck stands up in attention at this. Her hot grappa breath in is ear as she explains further.

_Oh, big sweet Yezuzz, that's some scary stuff!_

"Hell no! Uhu. No way!"

"But Sawyer did…." she pouts._ Aw. _Yeah, she's really got him now. Clinched tightly around the bollocks. What's a man to do? His heart has a hard time staying inside his blown up chest. The emotions just too alien, too outlandish to process.

"Uhu. Nope. _**NO**_. Not on Kate. Can't believe you asked me _that_!"

"But…" He sees a shift in her eyes and hopes that it means she's given up on that kinky shit.

_Pfew – yep – crisis averted. _

"Miles…."

She rubs his arm, pushing his sleeve upwards. Looks up at him with those Bambi eyes, and then leans her head on his shoulder. _Ah. He could get used to this. _He circles his arm around her waist, hugs her closer as they walk. The sound of the waves lapping at the beach already audible nearby.

"Yeah…?"

"I love…"

"What baby?" He stops in his tracks.

"Come closer…" And he is not late to obey. She twists to face him, her little naughty hands move down, groping his behind through the thick fabric. It's sort of _his_ move, but hell, he isn't complaining. She can borrow it all that she wants.

"I love…." She sighs and he swears it's like someone turned the stars on the way they glitter and shine above them, the indigo blue of the sky, everything goes all techno-colour around them. He can't believe it. _Oh._ The thrill of anticipation is killing him.

_Bloody freaking yay! _It looks like _**she'll**_ be the first to say it and then…he'll just say: _'me too'._ Perfect! This is the perfect night. The perfect moment. And in his mind he tells her; _**I fucking love you! **_But in the real world - he waits. For her to say it first.

"I really,.. really… really..."

_Aw, come on! Say it girl! _She blinks and looks downwards, looking coy and cute and – freakin' gorgeous. She leans in and lets her lips slide up his cheek and whispers somewhere in the area of his temple.

" I really love your ass in these drabs."

_Huh? _

Insert wild giggling and snorting laughter and well - you get the picture. He's been had! He's been _**so**_ had! She makes doe eyes at him and he sees where this is going.

"No. Hell no Kate! Not falling for that one! Still – _**not**_ - doing - it!"

He pulls her into a tight hug. Some serious shit this. He inhales, shamelessly breathing her in. She is a sore looser if he's ever seen one. She gently shoves him away and starts stalking away towards the pier in a huff. And he can only tag along behind her, wanting to beat himself over his big soppy corkhead.

_She must like him._ Right? But what is it? She clearly has the hots for him but what is it leading to? Does she really, really like him or is it only… – and Christ! He is a chick. He's turning into a girl! A schmaltzy, mawkish schmuck. He glowers at her as she skips along like a particularly boisterous foal. A tipsy horny foal. _Argh. _This can't be happening.

But it is. It's on. If he plays his cards right and he'll have screwed her at the end of this night and maybe, maybe this lovey-dovey sentimental crap will have disappeared. He'll have gotten it out of his system. _Maybe. _He doesn't feel very certain about it.

"Come on, try to keep up!" she snaps somewhat impatiently. They make their way down to the beach. A little sandy stretch just west of the dock. And he can only watch her in awe as she kicks her boots off and tugs down the zipper of her filthy, filthy uniform – just so. She yanks out the bottle and hands it to him. Proudly, as if presenting him with their firstborn.

Man, this chick is a disaster zone. He looks like he's just been to a day spa compared to her. And it's odd. They have been through the _**exact**_ same stuff since this morning. Mucking out the cages, crawling through the jungle, rolling around getting undressed on the forest floor (_oh, no – that was just him_). It's unhinging that she'd manage to get ten times more dirty than him. Though if anyone can handle the grunge look, it has to be her. She still looks like a freakin' dream even with the grime covering her from top to toe in a thick crust.

"It's Pisang Ambon," she says with a possessive smugness as if she'd invented the horrible syrupy stuff herself.

"Yeah? But is it safe?" he bitches, glaring at it as if it was Kryptonite. It definitely doesn't seem worth almost going blind for. He'd rather not have seen LaFleur and the gang getting their _freaky_ on. The only redeeming feature of the gunk is that it looks poisonous enough to incinerate that image too. God willing.

"Well, it's nice and you know. Might help with the nerves a bit," she says, pushing the hair out of her face and struggling to pull off her filthy _(filthy_!) socks. _Dear God, she's filthy!_

"Yeah, I remember that working out _**really**_ well for you on our first date."

But he has to admit that she's got a point. Maybe that's the answer!? Get so thoroughly smack-your-head-against-the-wall drunk that nothing really matters.

"Yeah, it didn't did it? But I mean, I was drinking on my own that time, and now it'll be together so… you know…"

He lets the thought sink in, and _hell,_ it's almost romantic, emulating their very first (and only) failed date like this. Getting sloshed together. Well it's a step forward at least. Though LaFleur beating the mush out of him he can do without.

" Yeah okay, but only if you flash your boobs like that time too…"

She smiles, a rabbity grin that narrows her eyes to slits and nods slowly.

"Yeah, we'll see about that. Who knows, I might even be able to do better … You wanna' take a quick dip in the sea…"

Yes. Thank god. Yes. She could really do with a good scrubbing. And he's grateful for the delay of the inevitable. His test of virility. The unavoidable LaFleur comparison, by which all men must be measured.

"Sure, lead the way grubby chick!" he says as coolly as he can.

That she does, with her awkwardly sensual flair. The moon is almost full and dear lord of mercy, as if he needed any more corny romantic imagery in his inanely mushy head. But as he watches her in front of him it quickly goes from birds chirping to red hot blood pumping through his veins. She just bounces ahead, stripping as she runs, pieces of clothing flying through the air quicker than he can say 'modesty'. And hell, he can only follow. He can barely make out anything except her outline in this light, but then again, the lithe shape of her, is enough to make him want to blow his head off.

He just wants to tell her. Before this goes any further. He stumbles as he struggles with his overall, stubs his toes against a rock or something. And then he's in the tepid water. And she is there, sweeping through like an eel. And she isn't shy. He wonders if the Grappa is to blame or if this is him – driving her to this.

"Hey,.." he almost protests when her arms sneak around his neck, fingers tickling him at the nape and then her. Tepid water and her fluid skin hell…like a slippery mermaid against him. The moisture of her lips against his. Water, moisture everywhere and he's grateful for the darkness. She can't see how he blushes.

_Tell her, tell her…_

"Kate…" he wants to gush it all out. A great romantic gesture, a declaration of love. It's now or never. But… As if she can read his mind, she draws away.

"It's just sex Miles… so don't get soppy on me okay? We clear?"

"Yeah totally," he beams pathetically at her as he imagines flicking a veil away from her face, carrying her over the threshold. An idea so whimsically absurd, he might as well let it run wild – so he allows himself to picture half a dozen of little 'MilesandKates' too. Just for the hell of it. _Aw. _

_But hey – wait a minute!_

Those kids will look fricking weird!

Suddenly he can see them clearly, as clearly as if they were actually real standing there in the water around them. And it's a veritable horror movie, a nightmare. All with identical slanted eyes and frowning pointed eyebrows. Little clones with their little pouty sourpuss mouths, crazy freckles from top to little toes and wild curly Crusty the Clown hair on their little heads. Each with a superbly bad attitude and a penchant for violence to boot.

No.

_At second thought, better keep those raging hormones in check._

"Alrighty then, sparkling clean. Let's get up," he says with a no nonsense kind of certainty. He hopes. Hell, he isn't ready for this.

"Aw, maybe you just need a drink," she says, sounding somewhat disappointed. But dear mother of god – had she had a glimpse of those clones she'd have sworn abstinence faster than you could say 'hail Mary' too. He takes her by the hand, all slippery skin against him and bundles her up on the beach again. They dry themselves off with their overalls, pulls them up half way as they balance with an impressive one-legged coordination, backs turned towards each other.

He spreads their t-shirts out the sand, and they slump down next to each other. Strangely awkward and shy now that they've already made out like frisky salmons in the water. He dares a flighty glance at her there beside him.

_Well fuck me Freddie._

He can barely bear to look at her now, sitting there as if it was nothing - half unclad. _**Way**_ better than sneaking a peak through a drunken girl's unzipped uniform.

She's looking cleaner. Definitely cleaner. The white of her skin reflecting the moonlight and her teeth about the only thing clearly visible in the dark. She reaches for the bottle, unscrews the cork with a 'humph' and passes it on to him. And he thinks, there is only one thing to do to get this on. He brings the bottle up by its neck and is surprised by the sweet banana smell the seeps out. He lifts slants it in a 110 degree angle, head backwards and glunks down as much as he dares.

"Not bad huh?" she says and takes it from him again.

"No not bad at all…"

* * *

_Ahugh._

Is this death?

_Ergh._

And if it isn't death.

_**He. Just. Wants. To Die. **_

Something is sticking to his left cheek and he gasps as he carefully pries open his eyes.

AAARGH!

The pain! The pain of the sunlight in his eyes. It's intolerable. And where the fuck is he?

_This is sand. _

What's under his face, his hands, his belly – sand. That can't be right but he doesn't dare open his eyes again to confirm it. And if it is, indeed sand. That must mean that the crunchy thing in his mouth is sand too.

_ACK._

There wasn't any sand in his cot last night. Come to think of it, there wasn't any cot at all last night. Or at least not him in a cot and hell, his memory is grudgingly seeping back and he'd groan for feeling like a piece of beef jerky but he's afraid that it will only bring more sand into his mouth.

_Hold on a second._

Where the hell are his clothes? Arms naked; check. Legs naked; check. Belly down in sand; definitely unclothed. Ass: hmm… hard to say. Something wet slung around him but he's definitely got sand in his groin. Just feels like he needs to throw up. Or like he might feel better if he did. He just can't open his eyes. Not just yet. He grapples with the sand, trying to stop the world from spinning so violently.

_What happened?_

He seems to remember something. Clipped images flashing by as if he were stuck in a Clockwork Orange brainwash sequence. Green atomic wastewater? Skinny-dipping. Frolicking like salmon? A kiss? Glossy skin. Sticky banana stuff?

Oh… and where the heck is she? The chick. The dream chick of all chicks that was here last night.

He must have said it. It must have slipped out after downing that bottle of banana poison. He can't remember. But somehow he knows. He must have said it.

_EEK!!!_

Kate.

_I love you._

What the _**fuck**_ has he done?!

He moans into the sand managing to shovel up another truckload of the stuff in his mouth. Beyond caring. It's a disaster. A catastrophe of magnificent proportions.

WHAT. HAS. HE. DONE?

* * *

_So this is what it's like,_ she thinks as she wrestles with him there in the sand. The smell of him like warm gingerbread. Finally giving into the infatuation. It doesn't mean anything. It's nothing special – just a stupid crush. But that sardonic smile and that mouth, the catlike mouth with the funny lips. This is what happens when you give into it.

His lips taste of banana liqueur and a little bit of the porcini tortellini. But he is delicious. He tastes just like he ought to. The pain of Juliet and Sawyer replaced by something else, a feeling of relief. It's over and he's here now. Miles with the funny stubble around his mouth and chin scratching her in a way that is completely new.

And she is so drunk. She had to do something, otherwise they would never have been here on the ground getting sand in the most impossible places. She had to.

* * *

Arggh….

She feels the sun burning into her back and for a second she thinks she's in an oven.

"Hey Freckles! Looking good enough to eat!"

_Him._

No that can't be right. She was with… yeah, another arrogant bastard last night. Or so it had seemed. She doesn't even have enough energy to lift her head up. She hadn't realized that their little stretch of sand was so close to the ferry docking last night. It's only now when their voices boom out, too damn loud, somewhere above her, and near enough to hurt.

"Ouch – whaddidya' have to do that for?! It's only a manner of speech… darling.."

"Oh for the love of God James… I can't deal wit this now." A woman's voice, that frosty edge that immediately identifies its owner as Juliet. " Hey Kate, you better get dressed if you're taking the sub. The ferry will be leaving soon"

_Get dressed?_

What? Where?

_Ferry?_

She can hear the clomping on the wooden deck of another pair of shoes, no wait, maybe two pairs.

"Hi guys, what's up?" Jin. Must be, with his stiff, perfect English attempting to sound hip. "What are you looking at?

"Those two down there. Hey Short Cake! You kids starting your own nudie camp down there?"

If she gave a rat's ass she'd have flipped him the birdie, but even that seems too much work right now. Just wants to die.

"Miiiles, yohoo… You okay honey?" Oh and that must be the little bosomy blondie that did the zigzag thing last night between the chairs, from Sawyer to Jin.

And if Miles is anywhere near her, he might be dead because there is no answer forthcoming.

Her mouth tastes distinctly like the bottom of a cat's litterbox. The amount of sand in it does everything to reinforce that impression. Come to think of it, she might very well be lying face down in a giant litterbox.

Agh.

She wants to die. Wants to die and though she is starting to realize that she is in fact lying head long in sand without a thread on, there is nothing, nothing she can do about it. Nothing that she wants to do about it either. She can't even manage to be mildly concerned about it. Nakedness definitely dwarfed by the overwhelming death wish.

She hears a heavier set of steps on the dock and then the cruel greeting of the straight and sober.

"Morning dudes! You ready to rock?"

"Morning sunshine! Where's the missus? Not coming?" _Sawyer. _She would have smiled if it were in her power. But as it is, she knows she'll only end up drooling in the sand. "And yeah, before you gotta' ask – yeah it's them drunk and nekkid."

"Lara is on her way. Just packing the baby stuff. Hmm… Dude, shouldn't we make sure they're alive or something?"

"Ah, they're alive, they've just exhausted themselves – the novelty of freckles and all that…." Sawyer exclaims flippantly and from the sound of it, this earns him another cuff across the head.

"Ouch! You better stop that Blondie or…"

"Or you're going to do what?"

"Ok break it up you two! Wait, man, I think I just saw her little finger moving…"

She knows she ought to try to pry her eyes open, if nothing else just to provide a sign of life but she fears her head will spontaneously implode if she does.

_So hangover… We meet again. Her arch nemesis._

It isn't a new acquaintance – not at all. They're old pals, go way back together. But she is conscious enough to realize that this specific version is snap above the rest. The big Kahuna of hangovers. The patriarch of all morning afters.

And she knows she's missing something. Something important. And why does the taste of gingerbread dough come to mind?

She manages to wedge her head sideways; her hair across her face provides a merciful protection against the assault of the sun, visible through her closed eyelid in a red-hot delirium.

"Miles," she croaks like a dried up, desiccated frog. And she feels like one too.

"See – alive and kicking!" comes the triumphant voice of Sawyer.

"Gharbl…" comes his reply. And it instantly sobers her up a notch. Did they? Did they really… ? Had they?

Judging from her own state of undress, she has to conclude that the chances look pretty much in favour of that assumption

_Shit._

"You think they're coming back to the mainland with us?"

"Whaddaya' think Einstein? Looks like they'd rather play Adam and Eve here for a while. And hell, I don't blame them – happen to have a few fond memories of this here place myself…ouch - _**no**_ baby! Enough with the whopping!"

Even if she would have wanted to – there is not even a sliver of a chance of her standing up, getting dressed and getting on that ferry. She decides there and then that she might as well stay. And if there really is a maniac trying to blow them all to hell's end then _fuck it_. She isn't moving.

And something else, that floats around in there, flighty like a damn fruit fly, darting around undetected, she can't get a grip on it. Just when she thinks she's got it, it slips away again, like a greased up snake, slithering between her fingers.

"Gbhou..'kay?" Miles slurs like he's got his mouth shock-full of, well, sand. And she can only guess that he's inquiring with regards to her wellbeing.

"Not dead…" she wheezes hoarsely, sort of smug over her superior vocalization skills.

_Clompety-clomp._

"What are you all looking at?... Is that?..." Lara Chang. And it occurs to Kate that Sawyer might not have been the only one to earn a whopping if she'd have known that the man lying bare-assed on the beach in complete stupor - was in fact her son. The painful process of stringing that thought together into a sentence gives her an agonizing, crippling migraine.

A sea of voices in a bored unison, as if this is getting old:

"Yes it is!"

And this is when she catches it, that renegade thought, they one that wouldn't let itself be captured. Suddenly it sticks like something unpleasant on a flypaper.

_I love you._

God no. Who?! Who had said it? She or he?

_No. NO. No. – Let it be him at least._

It was just supposed to be a crush. A little meaningless fun and no, no no no no no. What has she done? Did she really?.... It's entirely possible. She reverts to burying her face in the sand. She'll remain like this. Will never speak again.

_Might as well die._

* * *

_20 chapters down and Miles 'might' have finally gotten laid, just might have… He might also have said the ILY…ah, unless it was Kate who said it. Anyway, will leave them to deal with their hangover galore for now. _

_By the way, anyone else remotely curious as to who Miles girlfriend is, the one he's referring to in Recon? No? No? No, guess you all are normal, functioning people. I for one can't sleep for wondering. Is it Juliet – or Shannon – or Rose – or Ana Lucia or Naomi or… Damn, driving myself insane with this… will skulk off now to look for spoilers on the subject… _


End file.
